Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

Nalpropion markets Contrave® for weight management in overweight or obese adults, with three Orange Book-listed patents. The 626 patent is drawn to a method for treating overweight or obesity comprising diagnosing an individual as suffering from overweight or obesity by body mass index, administering bupropion in an amount effective to induce weight loss, and administering naltrexone in an amount effective to enhance the weight loss activity of bupropion. The 195 patent is also directed to methods of treating overweight or obesity, but the claims are drawn to specific dosages of sustained-release naltrexone and bupropion that achieve a specific dissolution profile. The 111 patent is directed to a composition of sustained-release bupropion and naltrexone for affecting weight loss. Actavis filed an abbreviated new drug application seeking to enter the market with a generic version of Contrave® before the expiration of those patents. Nalpropion alleged infringement; Actavis brought invalidity counterclaims. The district court held each claim not invalid and infringed. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, rejecting Actavis’s argument that a claim of the 195 patent lacked adequate written description support because its claimed dissolution profile was achieved using one method but the specification discloses data obtained using another method. The court reversed with respect to the 626 patent; it would have been obvious for a person of skill to combine bupropion and naltrexone for treating overweight and obesity because both drugs were known to cause weight loss. View "Nalpropian Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Actavis Laboratories FL, Inc." on Justia Law

Sanofi’s 170 and 592 patents respectively claim the compound cabazitaxel and methods of using it. Sanofi markets cabazitaxel under the trade name Jevtana® to treat certain drug-resistant prostate cancers. Both patents are listed in the Orange Book as covering cabazitaxel. Cabazitaxel belongs to a family of compounds called taxanes and is the third and most recent taxane drug to gain FDA approval. The others are paclitaxel, approved in 1992, and docetaxel, approved in 1996. Defendants filed Abbreviated New Drug Applications to market generic versions of cabazitaxel before the expiration of the patents, prompting Sanofi to sue for infringement. Defendants sought a declaration of invalidity. The district court found claims 7, 11, 14–16, and 26 of the 592 patent invalid as obvious and claims 1 and 2 of the 170 patent not invalid as obvious. The Federal Circuit vacated as to claims 7, 11, 14–16, and 26 of the 592 patent because there was no case or controversy with respect to those claims when the district court issued its decision. Sanofi’s disclaimer of the disclaimed claims mooted any controversy over them. The court affirmed that the 170 patent is not invalid as obvious over docetaxel. View "Sanofi-Aventis U.S., LLC v. Fresenius Kabi USA, LLC" on Justia Law

Iridescent’s 119 patent, entitled “System and Method of Providing Bandwidth on Demand,” is directed to a system and method of network communication that provides guaranteed bandwidth on demand for applications that require high bandwidth and minimizes data delay and loss during transmission. In Iridescent’s infringement suit against AT&T, the parties stipulated to noninfringement based on the district court’s construction of the term “high quality of service connection.” The Federal Circuit affirmed. The term “high quality of service connection” is a term of degree that is limited to the minimum connection parameter requirements disclosed in Figure 3 of the 119 patent. The term means “a connection that assures connection speed of at least approximately one megabit per second and, where applicable based on the type of application, packet loss requirements that are about 10-5 and latency requirements that are less than one second.” View "Iridescent Networks, Inc. v. AT&T Mobility, LLC" on Justia Law

MTD’s 458 patent discloses a steering and driving system for zero-turn radius (ZTR) vehicles, with specific reference to ZTR lawnmowers. The patented system is designed to provide a more intuitive steering mechanism to operators of ZTR vehicles. Toro sought inter partes review of claims 1–16 of the patent. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board found the challenged claims obvious under 35 U.S.C. 103, holding that the claim term “mechanical control assembly . . . configured to” perform certain functions is not a means-plus-function term subject to 35 U.S.C. 112. The Federal Circuit vacated, concluding that the Board erred by conflating corresponding structure in the specification with a structural definition for the term, and by misinterpreting certain statements in the prosecution history. Under the appropriate legal framework, the term “mechanical control assembly” is a means-plus-function term governed by section 112. That the specification discloses a structure corresponding to an asserted means-plus-function claim term does not necessarily mean that the claim term is understood by persons of ordinary skill in the art to connote a specific structure or a class of structures. View "MTD Products Inc. v. Iancu" on Justia Law

The University, an agent or instrumentality of the Swiss Confederation, having a place of business in Bern, Switzerland, granted an exclusive license of its 114 patent to the German company LABOKLIN, whose principal place of business is in Bad Kissingen, Germany. Under the License Agreement, LABOKLIN was required to commercialize the invention in North America. LABOKLIN entered into sublicenses in the U.S. PPG, a corporation headquartered in Washington State, offers laboratory services. After obtaining the University’s consent, LABOKLIN sent a cease-and-desist letter to PPG in Spokane, Washington. PPG sued LABOKLIN and the University, requesting a declaratory judgment that the Asserted Claims of the 114 patent are ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 for failing to claim patent-eligible subject matter. The Federal Circuit affirmed that the district court had jurisdiction over both LABOKLIN and the University. LABOKLIN had sufficient minimum contacts with the U.S. to comport with due process; the University, a foreign sovereign in the U.S., had engaged in “commercial activity” sufficient to trigger an exception to jurisdictional immunity under 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(2) by “obtain[ing] a patent and then threaten[ing] PPG by proxy with litigation.” PPG had stipulated to infringement of the Asserted Claims; the courts found those Claims patent-ineligible as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter, namely the discovery of the genetic mutation that is linked to HNPK. View "Genetic Veterinary Sciences, Inc. v. LABOKLIN GMBH & Co. KG" on Justia Law

Lilly markets the compound pemetrexed in the form of a disodium salt as Alimta®, which is indicated, both alone and in combination with other active agents, for treating certain types of non-small cell lung cancer and mesothelioma. Patent disputes about Alimta® reach back more than a decade. DRL, Hospira, and Actavis submitted New Drug Applications (NDA) under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. 355(b)(2), relying on Lilly’s clinical data for pemetrexed disodium but each seeks to market different pemetrexed salts. The district court concluded that the NDA submission infringed the 209 patent under 35 U.S.C. 271(e)(2) and prohibited FDA approval of the products at issue until the expiration of that patent. The Federal Circuit reversed in part. The finding of literal infringement in the Hospira Decision was clearly erroneous in light of the court’s claim construction of “administration of pemetrexed disodium.” The court otherwise affirmed the infringement holding; the district court did not err in its application of the doctrine of equivalents in either decision. View "Eli Lilly and Co. v. Hospira, Inc." on Justia Law

Uniclass and ATEN make and sell keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switch systems that allow a user to control multiple computers from a single keyboard, video device, and mouse. ATEN sued Uniclass and the customer defendants alleging infringement of its 141 and 289 patents. The 141 patent is directed to technology for switching between computers that share a keyboard, monitor, and mouse through a KVM switch, such as a keyboard shortcut. A jury found that Uniclass did not infringe the asserted claims and that the asserted claims of the 141 patent were invalid as anticipated (35 U.S.C. 102) without specifying which reference was the basis for its finding. The Federal Circuit reversed as to invalidity and affirmed as to infringement. The finding of anticipation was not supported by substantial evidence that “each and every element is found within a single prior art reference, arranged as claimed.” View "ATEN International Co., Ltd. v. Uniclass Technology Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

Uniclass and ATEN make and sell switch systems that allow a user to control multiple computers from a single keyboard, video device, and mouse. ATEN sued Uniclass and the customer defendants alleging infringement of its 141 and 289 patents. A jury found that Uniclass did not infringe the asserted claims and that the asserted claims of the 141 patent were invalid as anticipated (35 U.S.C. 102) without specifying which reference was the basis for its finding. The Federal Circuit reversed as to invalidity and affirmed as to infringement. The court affirmed the denial of Uniclass’s motion to declare the case exceptional under 35 U.S.C. 285. Uniclass argued that ATEN did not conduct an adequate pre-filing investigation, unnecessarily increased the costs of claim construction, drastically increased discovery costs by frequently changing counsel and infringement positions, and engaged in unreasonable litigation behavior requiring additional motion practice and leading to an expensive and disproportionate trial. The court noted that note that ATEN’s primary argument on appeal—that the court improperly gave claim construction disputes to the jury—was rejected because ATEN did not timely raise the issue below and found that ATEN’s positions were not so objectively unreasonable or exceptionally meritless as to stand out from other cases. View "ATEN International Co., Ltd. v. Uniclass Technology Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

Anjinomoto’s 655 patent claims E. coli bacteria that have been genetically engineered to increase their production of aromatic L-amino acids, such as L-tryptophan, during fermentation, as well as methods of producing aromatic L-amino acids using such bacteria. Ajinomoto filed a complaint against CJ with the International Trade Commission, alleging that CJ was importing certain products that infringed the patent. CJ used several strains of E. coli to produce L-tryptophan products, which it then imported into the United States. The Commission determined that CJ’s earlier strains did not infringe but that CJ’s two later strains did, and that the relevant claim of the 655 patent is not invalid for lack of an adequate written description. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the Commission’s construction of “replacing the native promoter . . . with a more potent promoter.” The court rejected CJ’s claim of prosecution history estoppel and held that the 655 patent expressly provides four examples of “more potent promoters,” so that the Commission supportably found that a skilled artisan could make relatively predictable changes to the native promoter to arrive at a more potent promoter. View "Ajinomoto Co., Inc. v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

VirnetX appealed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision related to three inter partes reexaminations maintained by Apple and Cisco. In this case, the PTO concluded that Apple was not barred from maintaining its reexams by the estoppel provision of the pre-America Invents Act (AIA) version of 35 U.S.C. 317(b), and the Board affirmed the examiner's determination that the claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,418,504 and 7,921,211 are unpatentable as anticipated or obvious over the prior art of record. The '504 and '211 patents describe systems and methods for establishing a secure communication link between a first computer and a second computer over a computer network, such as the Internet.The Federal Circuit held that there has been a final decision entered against Apple that it has not sustained its burden of proving invalidity, and thus section 317(b) estoppel applied to the Apple reexams. Therefore, the court vacated the Board's decisions in the Apple reexams with respect to claims 1–35 of the '504 patent and claims 36–59 of the '211 patent and remanded with instructions to terminate. The court affirmed the Board's decision on all remaining claims of both patents in the Apple reexam not subject to section 317(b) estoppel and fully affirmed the Board's decision regarding the claims of the '211 patent in the Cisco reexam. View "VirnetX Inc. v. Apple Inc." on Justia Law