Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

WhitServe, owned by Whitmyer, an inventor and a practicing patent attorney holds four patents, namely: “Onsite Backup for Internet-Based Data Processing,” “System Automating Delivery of Professional Services,” “System for Delivering Professional Services Over the Internet,”; and “Web Site Providing Professional Services.” Whitserve sued CPi, which helps other businesses pay their patent maintenance fees on time, alleging infringement by CPi’s system, which are used by a CPi customer, such as a law firm, to generate and send reminders to its clients of upcoming patent or trademark annuity or maintenance fee deadlines. A jury found that CPi failed to prove any claims invalid, that CPi’s systems infringed the patents, that CPi’s infringement was willful, and that WhitServe was entitled to $8,378,145 in damages. The court denied WhitServe’s request for a permanent injunction and did not address a request for a compulsory license. WhitServe’s requests for enhanced damages and attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest, prejudgment remedy, and disclosure were denied. The Federal Circuit affirmed the finding of infringement, the finding of no anticipation of most, but not all, claims, and denial of fees and sanctions. The case was remanded for a new trial on damages. View "Whitserve, L.L.C. v Computer Packages, Inc." on Justia Law

Wake Forest is the owner of asserted patents, and KCI are the exclusive licensees of the patents, which claim methods and apparatuses for treating difficult-to-heal wounds by applying suction or negative pressure. In response to S&N’s 2008 announcement that it was launching a new foam-based negative pressure wound treatment product, Wake Forest and KCI asserted that S&N infringes two apparatus claims of the patent and induces infringement of four method claims. Rejecting the jury’s findings of non-obviousness, the district court found obviousness, based on prior art, and rejected infringement claims. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. The objective evidence strongly supported the jury’s findings under the first three Graham factors and cut against the view that the claimed inventions were an obvious combination of known elements from the prior art. View "Kinetic Concepts, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc." on Justia Law

Whoever “invents or discovers and asexually re-produces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a patent therefor,” 35 U.S.C. 161. In 1980, Beineke noticed two white oak trees with superior genetic traits, such as excellent timber quality and strong central stem tendency. The trees were in the yard of another and about 105-118 years old. Beineke planted acorns from each. An examiner rejected patent applications because Beineke did not provide evidence that the trees were in a cultivated state. The Board affirmed, finding that the land on which the trees grew had existed as a wooded pasture until a house was constructed around 1930, after the trees began growing; there was no evidence that human activity contributed to the creation of the trees. The Federal Circuit affirmed, without addressing cultivation. Congress recognized that the relevant distinction was not between living and inanimate things, but between products of nature, whether living or not, and human-made inventions.” The trees were not “newly found seedlings,” and do not fall within the broadened protection of the 1954 amendments. View "In re Beineke" on Justia Law

Defense contractor Raytheon, specializes in infrared imaging. Indigo, also specializing in infrared imaging, was founded by former Raytheon employees including Woolaway, who promised not to recruit Raytheon employees. Indigo began consulting for Raytheon, governed by Confidential Disclosure Agreements. In 1997, Raytheon became concerned that Indigo was recruiting Raytheon personnel to gain access to trade secrets. The companies settled the matter by agreement. The relationship between Raytheon and Indigo terminated in 2000. In 2000, Indigo won a military contract; in 2003, Indigo was selected over competitors, including Raytheon, to receive another subcontract. In 2004, Raytheon acquired and disassembled an Indigo infrared camera and found what it believed was evidence of patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation. In 2007, Raytheon found a correlation with the expertise of former employees who had departed for Indigo. The district court dismissed claims of trade secret misappropriation as time barred. The Federal Circuit reversed. The district court erred by resolving genuine factual disputes in favor of Indigo, the moving party, and concluding that Raytheon should have discovered its claims before March 2, 2004. View "Raytheon Co. v. Indigo Sys. Inc." on Justia Law

01 Communique is the owner of the 479 Patent, which relates to technology that enables one computer to access another computer remotely via the Internet. The patent contains five independent claims describing systems, methods, and products for enabling such remote access, as well as numerous claims dependent therefrom. It discloses use of a “locator server computer” as an intermediary between a “remote computer” (the computer seeking access) and a “personal computer” (the computer to be accessed). The locator server computer “includes” software, referred to in the patent as a “location facility,” that locates the personal computer. The district court entered summary judgment of noninfringement, based on construction of a single claim term, “location facility.” The Federal Circuit vacated, finding the claim construction erroneous. View "01 Communique Lab., Inc. v. Logmein, Inc." on Justia Law

Grober invented a platform that stabilizes a camera for filming motion pictures from moving vehicles. Known in the entertainment industry as the Perfect Horizon, the technology won Grober an Academy Award in technical achievement. He received a patent, entitled “Autonomous Self Leveling, Self Correcting Stabilized Platform.” for the invention, designed to compensate for motion caused by waves, currents, wind, and other motion during land, air, and sea operations of a camera. Grober claimed infringement. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of defendants. The Federal Circuit vacated the claim construction and the grant of summary judgment and remanded. A patent is infringed if even a single claim is infringed and the district court misconstrued term “payload platform.” View "Grober v. Mako Prods., Inc." on Justia Law

The two patents in suit relate to systems for minimizing the cost of placing long-distance telephone calls. Mediatrix manufactures and sells equipment that modifies existing telephone systems to convert them to voice-over-Internet-protocol systems. Over the course of infringement litigation, plaintiff (RTI) was ordered on four separate occasions to respond to a specific contention interrogatory propounded by Mediatrix: “Separately for each claim of the Patents-in-suit that [RTI] contends is infringed, state the basis for that contention, including without limitation, identification on an element-by-element basis of the component, structure, feature, functionality, method or process of each accused Mediatrix product that allegedly satisfies each element.” A magistrate determined that RTI never adequately responded to the interrogatory and that the failure to comply with the court’s orders was willful, and recommended dismissing the case and imposing monetary sanctions against RTI’s attorney, Hicks, and RTI in the amount of $86,965.81, to be split evenly between them. The district court adopted the recommendation. Hicks appealed the monetary sanction. RTI did not appeal. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Rates Tech., Inc. v. Mediatrix Telecom, Inc." on Justia Law

Bancorp owns the 792 and 037 patents, for tracking value of life insurance policies in separate accounts, under which the policy owner pays a premium beyond that required for the death benefit and specifies types of assets in which additional funds are invested. Corporations use the policies to insure employees’ lives and fund retirement benefits on a tax-advantaged basis. The value of a separate account policy fluctuates; owners must report the value of their policies. The patents provide a computerized means for tracking book and market values and calculating stable value guarantee. Bancorp sued Sun Life for infringement. In another suit, the court invalidated the 792 patent for indefiniteness. Bancorp and Sun Life stipulated to conditional dismissal on collateral estoppel. The Federal Circuit reversed the other case. The district court vacated dismissal then granted summary judgment of invalidity under section 101 (ineligible abstract ideas) without addressing claim construction and analyzing each claim as a process claim. Applying “the machine-or-transformation test,” specified computer components are only objects on which claimed methods operate, and the central processor is a general purpose computer programmed in an unspecified manner for a process that can be completed manually. The claims “do not transform the raw data into anything other than more data and are not representations of any physically existing objects.” The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada" on Justia Law

RTI owns patents relating to the automatic routing of telephone calls based upon cost. Aware of infringement by Speakeasy, a telecommunications company, RTI offered to release Speakeasy from liability in exchange for a one-time payment under RTI’s tiered pricing structure. In 2007, the companies entered a “Covenant Not to Sue” with a payment of $475,000 to RTI, and a provision barring Speakeasy from challenging, or assisting others in challenging, the validity of the patents. The agreement defined “Speakeasy” to include both Speakeasy and Best Buy, which had previously announced plans to acquire Speakeasy. Three years later, Best Buy announced a plan to sell Speakeasy and merge it into Covad. RTI again learned of an infringement and notified Covad. Covad sought a declaratory judgment that the patents were invalid. The action was later dismissed voluntarily. RTI initiated the present lawsuit. The district court dismissed, holding that the doctrine of licensee estoppel, under which a licensee of intellectual property “effectively recognizes the validity of that property and is estopped from contesting its validity,” is unenforceable in the context of challenges to patents, and that the no-challenge clause was contrary to the public interest in litigating the validity of patents. The Second Circuit affirmed. View "Rates Tech. Inc. v. Speakeasy, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2006 the inventor submitted a utility patent application entitled “Crossbar Arithmetic Processor,” disclosing a computing device for processes such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division using nanoscale materials in a crossbar array. The examiner rejected all claims. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences affirmed under 35 U.S.C. 103(a). The Federal Circuit affirmed. Substantial evidence supports the conclusion that the claimed invention would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art. View "In re: Mouttet" on Justia Law