Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

The company filed a claim under the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S.C. 1337, asserting infringement of its patents on microchip encapsulation innovations. The ITC found no violation. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Substantial evidence supported the finding of no infringement of one patent by 17 of 18 defendants. The court also affirmed the ITC's determination that the patent was not anticipated and its finding of patent exhaustion with respect to the eighteenth defendant. The claims with respect to other patents, which have expired, are moot.

Plaintiff develops and manufactures cable telephony and data products for cable system operators for use in Voice over Internet Protocol systems and sought a declaratory judgment that its customer did not infringe defendant's patents by using equipment purchased from plaintiff. The district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. Although economic injury alone is insufficient to create standing, the defendant's accusation of infringement against plaintiff's customer included an implicit assertion that plaintiff indirectly infringed or contributed to infringement of the patent. The defendant has not provided plaintiff with a covenant not to sue.

Allergan has various patents that protect its glaucoma drug. The defendants each filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) seeking permission from the FDA to market a generic version of the drug. The district court found that Allerganâs asserted patents were not invalid and that the defendants infringed those patents. With respect to one defendant, the Federal Circuit reversed on one claim as "obvious" and affirmed the injunction with respect to four other claims. The court reversed with respect to the other defendant, stating that it would not assume that the company would violate its ANDA and that compliance with the ANDA would not result in infringement.

In litigation concerning patents covering various aspects of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to minimize the bottleneck in the ability of computers to process data through memory and synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), the other type of new memory technology, the district court upheld the defendant's patents and found infringement. In parallel litigation, the district court had concluded that the defendant had spoliated documents in contravention of a duty to preserve because litigation was reasonably foreseeable prior to the defendant's second document shred day; in that case, the Federal Circuit upheld the determination of spoliation, but remanded with respect to the sanction. In this case, the Federal Circuit remanded for reconsideration of the spoliation issue, but affirmed the court's construction of the term "bus" and its determinations that the defendant had not waived its right to litigate and concerning adequacy of written description and obviousness. Applying the proper standard compels a finding that the litigation was reasonably foreseeable. The destruction of the documents could reasonably constitute a crime, so piercing the attorney-client privilege, as in the parallel case, is appropriate.

Patents issued to Rambus covered various aspects of dynamic random access memory (DRAM)to minimize the bottleneck in the ability of computers to process data through memory. Rambus initially believed the patents broad enough to encompass synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), the other type of new memory technology, but later amended its applications to cover SDRAM. Micron claimed that its production of SDRAM products did not infringe Rambusâs patents and that Rambusâs patents were invalid and violated antitrust laws. The district court held that the patents were unenforceable against Micron because Rambus had engaged in spoliation by intentionally destroying relevant, discoverable documents in derogation of a duty to preserve them and did not reach the validity of the patents. The Federal Circuit affirmed with respect to spoiliation, vacated in part, and remanded. The district did not explain why only dismissal would vindicate the aims of deterring future spoliation; protecting the defendants' interests; and remedying the prejudice defendants suffered as a result of Rambusâs actions.

The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences affirmed the rejection of claims related to controlled-release tablets containing the opioid narcotic oxymorphone as obvious. The Federal Circuit upheld two rejections, stating that secondary considerations did not compel a holding of nonobviousness, and vacated a third as not supported by substantial evidence.

The patent, issued in 2000, is generally directed to lead frame based semiconductor packaging that supports and protects the integrated circuit module (chip), while providing electrical pathways between the chip and external devices. An examiner denied a 2001 reissue claim. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences affirmed. The Federal Circuit affirmed; 35 U.S.C. 251 does not allow a patent holder to gain, by reissue, what was surrendered to obtain allowance of the original claim. The subject reissue claims were broader than the patented claims and the broader aspects relate to surrendered subject matter, but the reissue claim does not âmaterially narrowâ the claims relative to the original claims so that full or substantial recapture of the subject matter surrendered during prosecution is avoided.

The company sells computer networking products, including firewalls, and filed a false marking claim against a "hacker" after the company was charged with infringement in a separate suit. The hacker's website claimed patent on a firewall product, but did not offer the product for sale; the company claims that the actual product was destroyed in a harddrive crash in 1999. The district court dismissed, reasoning that the website had not marked an âunpatented articleâ under 35 U.S.C. 292(a) because the âmarkingâ referred to the project and did not claim that the software was functioning on the site and that, even if the marking could be imputed to the site generally, the hacker had obtained two patents. The court characterized the company's complaint as alleging that the public was misled into believing that the site was running on software that no longer exists. The Federal Circuit affirmed and awarded costs.

The district court found a patent for a genetic test for Type I hereditary hemochromatosis invalid and rejected a claim of infringement. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The patent did not satisfy the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112, which requires the inventor to disclose the claimed invention so as to allow persons of ordinary skill in the art to recognize that the inventor invented what is claimed. Given the immaturity of the science at the time of filing, the filing represented a research plan; the requirement cannot be satisfied by later-acquired knowledge. The patent claim was also "anticipated;" every limitation was found either expressly or inherently in a prior application.

The Wellman patents disclose polyethylene terephthalate (âPETâ) resins for use in plastic beverage containers, claim that prior PET resins shrank or grew hazy when hot-filled, and disclose slow-crystallizing PET resins. Wellman claimed indirect infringement by Eastman. The district court found certain Wellman patents invalid. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, holding that five patents are invalid for intentional failure to disclose the best mode of practicing the technology. The court reversed a finding that certain claims were indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112. A claim need only provide a discernible boundary between what is claimed and what is not claimed; in this case, a person of ordinary skill in the art would follow standard industry guidance for conditioning plastics and could understand the bounds.