Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

The patents at issue relate to methods and devices for sealing a vascular puncture, which occurs when a medical procedure requires a puncture through the skin and into a vein or artery to insert a medical device, such as a catheter, into a patient’s vasculature. After such a procedure, the medical professional typically removes the medical device from the vasculature. Prior to development of the technology at issue, the medical professional was then required to apply external pressure to the puncture site until clotting occurred, sometimes for an extended period of time. This caused discomfort and increased the recovery time. The Janzen and Fowler patents disclose methods and devices for sealing a vascular puncture to improve patient recovery. The district court held that the safe-harbor provision of 35 U.S.C. 121 protects the Janzen patent from invalidity due to double-patenting; construed key terms in the Janzen patent; and found that the Fowler patents were not invalid for obviousness. The Federal Circuit reversed the safe harbor ruling, which rendered the rulings regarding the claim constructions moot, and affirmed that the Fowler patents are nonobvious and not shown to be invalid. View "St. Jude Med., Inc. v. Access Closure, Inc." on Justia Law

In 1997 Wawrzynski was awarded the 990 patent, entitled “Method of Food Article Dipping and Wiping in a Condiment Container.” The description illustrates a condiment container that has a flexible cap with a slitted opening. A user introduces a food article, such as a French fry, into the container through the slit and dips it into the condiment. As the food article is removed, the flexible cap wipes away excess condiment , reducing the likelihood of a drip or spill. . Wawrzynski presented his “Little Dipper” concept, permitting a consumer to either dip or squeeze, to Heinz in a 2008. Heinz indicated that the company was not interested in the product, but months later, released its new “Dip & Squeeze®” packet. Wawrzynski filed a lawsuit asserting breach of an implied contract and unjust enrichment. Heinz counterclaimed that Heinz did not infringe the patent and that the patent was invalid. The district court entered summary judgment, holding that federal patent law preempted the state law claims and that Wawrzynski failed to prove infringement. The Federal Circuit transferred to the Third Circuit, stating that its subject matter jurisdiction over patent disputes derives solely from the complaint, not from any counterclaim. View "Wawrzynski v. H.J. Heinz Co." on Justia Law

Jang, a doctor and inventor, sued BSC, the company to which Jang assigned his coronary stent patents, for breach of the patent assignment agreement, which required BSC to share profits from the patents with Jang, including any damages it recovers from third-party infringers. In 2010, BSC settled a claim against Cordis for infringement in combination with anther claim that Cordis had against BSC. BSC made a payment to Cordis, and the parties exchanged several patent licenses. BSC then denied that it had recovered any damages that it was obligated to share with Jang. The Third Circuit reversed judgment on the pleadings in favor of BSC. Two of Jang’s claims are sufficient to survive judgment on the pleadings: that BSC breached the contract because the cash offset qualifies as a “recovery of damages” and that BSC violated the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by structuring a settlement to thwart the agreed purpose of the patent assignment. View "Jang v. Boston Scientific SciMed Inc." on Justia Law

Accenture alleged infringement of its patent, which describes a “computer program ... for handling insurance-related tasks” and discloses software components of the program, including a “data component that stores, retrieves and manipulates data” and a client component that “transmits and receives data to/from the data component.” The client component includes a business component that “serves as a data cache and includes logic for manipulating the data.” The program also describes a controller component to handle program events and an adapter component to interface with a data repository. The district court found all of the claims invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Accenture appealed only with respect to claims 1–7, directed to a system for generating tasks to be performed in an insurance organization, but did not appeal the similar method claims 8–22. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the system claims at issue recite patent-ineligible subject matter both because Accenture was unable to point to any substantial limitations that separate them from the similar, patent-ineligible method claim and because the system claim does not, on its own, provide substantial limitations to the claim’s patent-ineligible abstract idea. View "Accenture Global Servs. GMBH v. Guidewire Software, Inc." on Justia Law

Bayer’s patent concerns genetically modifying plants to confer resistance to a common herbicide (2,4-D) by inserting a particular DNA segment into plant cells, which reproduce to create new cells that contain that gene. Those cells produce an enzyme that catalyzes a biochemical reaction with 2,4-D in which the herbicide is broken down into something harmless to the plant. A plant with the gene survives 2,4-D application while surrounding weeds do not. At the time of the patent application, the inventors had sequenced one gene coding for one enzyme, using a test supposedly capable of finding other, similar genes. In writing the application, they claimed a broad category based on the function of the particular enzyme, defining the category by using a term with established scientific meaning. Years before the patent issued, experiments showed that the term did not apply to the particular enzyme whose gene was sequenced, but Bayer did not change its claim language. When Bayer sued Dow for infringement, Bayer recognized that the term’s established scientific meaning, did not cover the accused product, which was, itself, different from the enzyme whose gene Bayer’s inventors had sequenced. Bayer argued for broad functional claim construction. The district court entered summary judgment of noninfringement, citing particularly the great breadth of the asserted functional construction. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Bayer CropScience AG v. Dow AgroSciences, LLC" on Justia Law

TT’s 411, 768, 374, and 055 parents relate to software used for electronic trading on a commodities exchange, were issued in 2010-2011, and claim priority to applications filed in 2000. In consolidated infringement proceedings, the district court found the patents invalid for failure to comply with the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112 and that prosecution history estoppel barred TT from asserting the 055 patent against software products that include certain display functions. The holdings were premised on a 2010 Federal Circuit decision involving two related patents from TT’s portfolio. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the earlier decision does not control the issues presented in this litigation. View "Trading Techs. Int'l v. Open E Cry, LLC" on Justia Law

Aevoe’s patent is directed to a touch screen protector for electronic devices, consisting of plastic film and a spacer that can be attached and removed without trapping air bubbles or dust. The spacer, sized to fit a particular device and having an adhesive for attachment and removal, surrounds the thin plastic film and is thick enough that the film does not make direct contact with the screen, but thin enough that a user can make contact with the touch screen by pressing the film. Aevoe sued, alleging that AE’s touch screen products infringed the patent. Despite receiving notice of restraining and show cause orders, AE did not respond. The district court issued a preliminary injunction. AE moved to reconsider and vacate, arguing that the patent was invalid. The court amended the injunction to omit “trademark language.” AE did not appeal. Aevoe subsequently filed an amended complaint, claiming that S&F sold infringing products obtained from AE and requested that both AE and S&F be held in contempt. After examining a redesigned AE product, the court found that added channels were a nonfunctional and trivial attempt to design around the patent and held all defendants in contempt. The Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal as untimely; amendment of the injunction was a mere clarification and did not substantially change the legal relationship between the parties. View "AEVOE Corp. v. AE Tech Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

SkinMedica owns the 494 and 746 patents, which relate to methods for producing pharmaceutical compositions containing “novel conditioned cell culture medium compositions ... [and] uses for the[m].” Skinmedica filed a patent infringement suit against Histogen for producing dermatological products according to methods covered by the claims of those patents. The district court entered summary judgment of noninfringement after construing the phrase “culturing ... cells in three-dimensions” as “growing ... cells in three dimensions (excluding growing in monolayers or on microcarrier beads).” The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "SkinMedica Inc v. Histogen Inc" on Justia Law

Apple sued Samsung, asserting that Samsung’s smartphones and tablets infringed several of Apple’s patents and infringed Apple’s trade dress embodied in its iPhone and iPad products. Samsung counterclaimed that the iPhone and iPad infringed several of Samsung’s patents. A jury returned a verdict awarding Apple more than $1 billion in damages. The trial drew an extraordinary amount of attention and the press was given extraordinary access to the judicial proceedings. The district court agreed to seal only a small number of trial exhibits. After each trial day, the parties, by court order, provided the press with electronic copies of every exhibit used that day. Most exhibits attached to pre-trial and post-trial motions were ordered unsealed. The parties appealed denial of requests to seal confidential exhibits. The Federal Circuit reversed, stating that the public’s interest in judicial proceedings does not extend to mere curiosity about the parties’ confidential information where the information is not central to a decision on the merits. View "Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

Bass, a professor of biochemistry at UUtah, studies RNA interference (RNAi), a phenomenon in which RNA plays a role in silencing expression of individual genes. Her employment contract assigns all patent rights arising from her work to UUtah. Tuschl, a researcher employed by UMass, is also active in RNAi research. Bass claims that Tuschl’s patents disclosed and claimed her conception. UUtah believes that Bass is the sole or a joint inventor of the Tuschl patents. UUtah asked assignees of those patents to cooperate in petitioning the U.S Patent and Trademark Office to correct the inventorship by adding Bass as an inventor. Defendants declined and UUtah filed suit under 35 U.S.C. 256. UMass moved to dismiss, arguing that because UUtah and UMass were both arms of the state, the dispute fell within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. UUtah amended its complaint, replacing UMass with four UMass officials. The district court rejected jurisdictional, failure to join an indispensable party (UMass), and sovereign immunity arguments, reasoning that relief under section 256 is prospective in nature, not retroactive remedy and that correction of inventorship was not a core sovereign interest sufficient to make this a dispute between states. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Univ of Utah v. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung der Wissenschaften E.V." on Justia Law