Posts Tagged: "sanctions"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today holding that it does not have jurisdiction to review appeals outside of final decisions on the merits from the International Trade Commission (ITC) that affect the entry of articles…. Realtek appealed the ITC’s denial of its motion for sanctions against Future Link, arguing that both the ITC ALJ and the Commission itself violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by rejecting the sanctions request. The ITC and Future Link argued that the CAFC did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal and that Realtek did not have standing.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Wednesday announced a new working group dedicated to broadening the Office’s efforts to mitigate common threats to the U.S. patent system. The group has been dubbed the Patent Fraud Detection and Mitigation Working Group and it “represents the agency’s continued commitment to limit improper activity in patent applications and reexamination proceedings at USPTO and reduce patent application pendency,” according to today’s press release.

The ITC instituted a Section 337 investigation in October 2020 against Realtek, TCL and other respondents over DivX’s allegations certain video processing devices imported into the U.S. for sale infringed its patent claims. Prior to an evidentiary hearing in July 2021, DivX filed an unopposed motion to withdraw its Section 337 complaint as it pertained to Realtek, proceeding on its infringement theories in the evidentiary hearing against TCL instead. Realtek filed for sanctions against DivX in October 2021. By failing to move for sanctions until months after DivX withdrew its infringement allegations against Realtek, the appellant could not properly comply with the safe harbor regarding the allegedly sanctionable conduct.

Last week, patent validity challenger OpenSky Industries filed a nonconfidential principal and responsive brief  with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit appealing former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director (USPTO) Kathi Vidal’s sanctions entered during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

On September 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a ruling in Abbott Laboratories v. H&H Wholesale Services, Inc., the appellate court’s latest decision in a nearly decade-long trademark case over the unlawful diversion of international diabetes test strips into the United States for sale. The appellate court affirmed the Eastern District of New York’s $33.5 million damages ruling against H&H Wholesale over the defendant’s arguments that it was entitled to a jury trial on damages. The Second Circuit also affirmed default judgment against an individual defendant who misled the district court as to her official role with H&H Wholesale.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a petition that challenged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision that found a district court had authority to impose $36 million in sanctions for abusive litigation practices in a trademark case. The underlying case relates to AECOM Energy & Construction, Inc.’s (AECOM) suit against Gary Topolewski, who owned a clothing business called Metal Jeans, Inc., for infringing use of trademarks associated with AECOM’s predecessor, Morrison Knudsen Corporation.

On March 11, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal issued an order on rehearing that upheld the attorney’s fee award levied against petitioner OpenSky Industries over its abuse of process during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Although Director Vidal’s order delayed the date by which OpenSky must pay, the ruling nixed OpenSky’s challenges to the more than $400,000 attorney’s fee award in favor of patent owner VLSI.

For better or worse, anyone can be sued for any reason—even reasons that are completely fictitious and based on allegations that are entirely false. Several cases have recently caused me to ask a simple question: Can something actually be evidence if it is false? I’ve had a few people respond, some thoughtful and others intentionally dense. “Of course, something that is false is evidence,” one person recently told me. “It is up to the trier of fact to determine what is false, and that which is false is clearly evidence to be considered.”

On November 8, a Central California jury entered a verdict awarding $3.9 million in punitive damages against Internet financial platform ConsumerDirect. The verdict comes weeks after U.S. District Judge James Selna granted a motion for sanctions  after finding that ConsumerDirect fraudulently represented its ownership of unregistered trademarks while obtaining a preliminary injunction in U.S. district court against Array.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal issued an Order last week in a sua sponte Director Review proceeding asking the parties to Spectrum Solutions LLC v. Longhorn Vaccines & Diagnostics, LLC and any interested amici to weigh in on the appropriate sanctions remedy when a party withholds evidence in an America Invents Act (AIA) proceeding.

In Sur-Replies filed late last week in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, Urban Intel, Inc. told the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that threats made by ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions “to file IPR petitions and a declaratory judgment action unless granted a free license to three valuable patents,” among other allegations, “runs directly counter to the purpose and goals of the post-grant administrative challenge system.” The sur-replies are in response to petitioner’s replies filed earlier this month by hotel security company ASSA, addressing abuse of PTAB process allegations by Urban Intel. ASSA argued that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) cannot enter sanctions against it because ASSA did not seek payment from Urban Intel’s exclusive licensee when it threatened to “rain down an avalanche of IPRs” if ASSA didn’t obtain a cost-free license to Urban Intel’s patents, according to the patent owner’s preliminary response.

If a sanctions order is the stuff of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) practitioner’s bad dreams, then the issuance of sanctions outright cancelling a client’s patent(s) qualifies as their worst nightmare. That nightmare happened to Longhorn Vaccine (“Longhorn”) in April of this year, when the PTAB canceled five  of its patents as sanctions for Longhorn’s violation of the duty of candor relating to withholding test data that the PTAB deemed relevant to the patentability of the challenged claims. A month later, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal sua sponte ordered Director Review of PTAB’s sanctions order. We now await her decision. This article examines the PTAB’s unprecedented sanctions order in the context of Director Vidal’s recent crackdown on inter partes review (IPR) abuses and provides guidance as to what practitioners can do now to avoid accusations of misconduct before the PTAB.

Months after invalidating patent claims undergirding one of the largest infringement verdicts ever entered in U.S. district court, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) recently received a round of briefing regarding potential sanctions against petitioner Patent Quality Assurance (PQA). Once accused by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of using the America Invents Act (AIA) process to extort money, PQA argues that its failure to respond to mandated discovery and its alleged misrepresentations regarding exclusive retainer of an expert witness should not result in an attorneys’ fees award as compensatory damages to patent owner VLSI.

On Wednesday, June 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled in a nonprecedential opinion that a Florida district court correctly dismissed a UK-based patent owner’s infringement case after he willfully disobeyed the court and disrupted the enforcement of a court order. The ruling is the second time that the UK resident, Yoldas Askan, lost a patent infringement lawsuit against FARO Technologies. Askan first sued FARO, alleging that the firm’s 3D scanner product infringed on claims in three of his U.S. patents. In the first case, Askan was sanctioned twice by the court and failed to respond to a court order demanding that he show cause.