Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

The 392 patent discloses a “four-sided, generally rectangular clamp” for connecting fluid flow elements, especially those used in compressed air systems—filters, regulators, and lubricators. The only independent claim is for a four-sided, generally rectangular clamp having a hinged side that can be opened to receive flanges of the elements and closed to hold the flanges. Norgren complained to the International Trade Commission that importation or sale of SMC devices alleged to infringe the patent violated the Tariff Act, 19 U.S.C. 1337. The ALJ found no violation, construing the claim to require four projecting rims on the flange of the element whereas SMC flanges have two rims and found the claims nonobvious. The Federal Circuit reversed because the generally rectangular ported flange of the asserted claims was not limited to a flange having four projecting rims. On remand, the ALJ found the asserted claims not invalid under 35 U.S.C. 103. The Commission reversed, finding the asserted claims obvious, and, thus, no section 337 violation. A prior art SMC clamp is four-sided and generally rectangular; addition of a hinge to that connector would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Norgren, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n" on Justia Law

The patent, issued in 1995, entitled “Valve Prosthesis for Implantation in the Body and a Catheter for Implanting Such Valve Prosthesis,” describes a prosthetic heart valve, mounted on a stent and implanted by catheter to avoid open heart surgery. The district court found the patent valid and infringed by and that the infringement was willful. The jury awarded damages of $72,645,555 in lost profits and $1,284,861 as a reasonable royalty. The district court entered judgment on the verdict, but declined to enhance damages for the willful infringement. The court also declined to issue an injunction against future infringement, apparently on defendant’s representation that, if enjoined, it would move its manufacturing operations to Mexico. The court also denied a request to modify the litigation-agreed protective order and to permit patent counsel and technical expert to participate in ongoing reexamination proceedings of the patent in suit and related patents. The Federal Circuit affirmed, but remanded reconsideration of the denial of an injunction in view of the representation of changed circumstances, and for reconsideration of the ruling on the protective order as applied to patents not in suit, to the extent that this issue has not become moot. View "Edwards Lifesciences AG v. Corevalve, Inc." on Justia Law

Voter Verified’s patent, issued in 2008 and claiming priority from an application filed in 2000, patent discloses and claims automated systems and methods for voting in an election. It features a self-verification procedure by which machine and human error may be detected and corrected before the ballot is submitted by the voter for tabulation. The voter enters a vote into an electronic voting station, which temporarily records the voter’s input in digital storage and generates a corresponding printed ballot. That printed ballot is then checked for accuracy, either by visual inspection by the voter or by a computerized scanning mechanism capable of comparing the face of the printed ballot with the vote data represented in the station’s temporary storage. Only ballots deemed consistent with the voter’s intended or recorded input are accepted for final tabulation. The district court held that claims 1-93 were not infringed, that claims 49 and 94 were invalid, and that other claims were not invalid. The Federal Circuit affirmed, noting that several of the steps involved in the alleged infringement require action by the voter. View "Voter Verified, Inc. v. Premier Election Solutions, Inc." on Justia Law

Flo sued Rioux for infringing a patent that describes a mobile computer workstation intended for medical care environments. Rioux then initiated an inter partes reexamination of the patent. The Patent and Trademark Office granted Rioux’s request, finding a substantial new question of patentability with respect to all 44 claims. The district court stayed the infringement suit pending the PTO’s final determination in the reexamination. The parties later agreed to voluntarily dismiss the infringement suit. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences ultimately upheld the examiner’s rejections of claims 8-17, 23, 24, 35, 40-42, 73, 76-79, 87, and 88. The Federal Circuit affirmed, reasoning that Flo’s only argument on appeal was that the prior art fails to teach or suggest a length-adjustable vertical beam; the claims on appeal when properly construed, do not require a length-adjustable vertical beam. Flo acknowledged that the prior art rejections must stand in the absence of such a limitation. View "Flo Healthcare Solutions, LLC v. Kappos" on Justia Law

The patent describes a “global paging system utilizing a land-based packet-switched digital data net-work (e.g. the Internet) and a feature for permitting subscribers to remotely designate countries in which they are, or expect to be, located.” The patent asserts that prior art was deficient because it did not fulfill the need for a cheap and efficient global paging system that allows users to “remotely input country designations in which they are to be paged,” noting that other than the roaming feature, the receiving user cannot input designated country locations where he expects to be and that the roam feature is expensive. TPL sued more than 100 defendants for infringement: domestic carriers and handset companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Motorola, and others; software providers, including Microsoft, Yahoo, and Clickatell; and foreign carriers. The district court dismissed foreign carriers for lack of personal jurisdiction and granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of domestic carriers and software providers. The Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment of noninfringement to the domestic carriers, stating that the judgment applies to the foreign carriers, affirmed summary judgment of noninfringement to software providers with respect to certain claims, but vacated judgment of noninfringement with respect to others. View "Tech. Patents LLC v. T-Mobile (UK) Ltd." on Justia Law

A jury found that Demant and Widex infringed the 749 and 850 patents. The court entered judgment finding noninfringement of the 749 patent, finding that prosecution history estoppel barred the finding of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. The patents relate to technology for reducing acoustic feedback in a programmable digital hearing aid. All hearing aids have: a microphone that picks up sound and converts it to an electrical signal, a speaker (receiver) that converts the signal back into sound waves, and sound processing circuitry that adjusts received sound to compensate for any hearing impairment. Some of the amplified sound from the speaker may also travel back to the microphone via an “acoustic feedback path” and is amplified along with all other sound arriving at the input microphone. The resulting cycle of amplification causes the whistling sound known as “feedback.” The common specification. with a 1986 priority date, describes a method of reducing feedback by creating an electrical feedback path and inserting a programmable filter in that path to mimic the effects of acoustic feedback on the phase and amplitude of a sound signal in the transmission channel. This electrical feedback signal then cancels the acoustic feedback signal. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Energy Transp. Group, Inc. v. Wm. Demant Holding A/S WDH, Inc." on Justia Law

Apple alleged that Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smart-phone infringed patents, including the 604 patent. Asserted claim 6 of the 604 patent is directed to a “unified search” that uses heuristic modules to search multiple data storage locations. Unified search refers to ability to access information on more than one data storage location through a single interface and allows the user to search the device’s local memory and the Internet by entering a single search query. Apple alleged that the Quick Search Box unified search application of Galaxy Nexus infringes claim 6. QSB is a feature of Android, an open-source mobile software platform developed by Google. Any software developer may use Android to create applications and any handset manufacturer can install Android on a device. Galaxy Nexus is one of more than 300 available Android smartphones. The release of the allegedly infringing version of the Android platform predated release of Galaxy Nexus, but Google is not a defendant. The district court enjoined sale of the Galaxy Nexus based on the alleged infringement of the 604 patent. The Federal Circuit reversed. The record did not permit the inference that the allegedly infringing features of the Galaxy Nexus drive consumer demand or the court’s clam construction. View "Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elec. Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

SanDisk sued Kingston for infringement of four patents relating to aspects of flash memory for USB “thumbdrives,” computers, smart phones, and mp3 players. Flash memory continues to store data after a power source is removed. The district court granted Kingston summary judgment of non-infringement with respect to certain asserted claims. SanDisk dismissed its remaining infringement claims and appealed. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded, first holding that it lacked jurisdiction to address certain claim construction arguments. With respect to other claims, the district court erred in its constructions of the “recording a relative time of programming ” limitation in certain claims and the “at least a user data portion and an overhead portion” limitation others. The court affirmed the judgment of no literal infringement of one claim, but vacated the judgment that Kingston did not infringe other claims under the doctrine of equivalents. View "Sandisk Corp. v. Kingston Tech. Co., Inc." on Justia Law

Belkin filed a request for inter partes reexamination of the 281 patent, which is directed to a wireless router, alleging 10 substantial new questions of patentability regarding claims 1–32 based on four prior art references. The Director determined that the first three references did not raise a substantial new question of patentability, but that the issue of anticipation by the Peirce patent did raise such a question as to claims 1–3 and 8–10 and ordered reexamination of those claims. The examiner then issued an Action Closing Prosecution addressing only proposed rejection of claims 1–3 and 8–10 as anticipated by Peirce. A Right of Appeal Notice issued, addressing only anticipation by Peirce. Belkin appealed to the Board, challenging the examiner’s failure to make rejections involving the other three references. The Board determined that it did not have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. 312(c) and that there had been no final decision on patentability regarding the three references under 35 U.S.C. 315(b). The Board affirmed with regard to the Peirce reference. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Board did not err in refusing to consider issues that the Director found not to raise a substantial new question of patentability. View "Belkin Int'l, Inc. v. Kappos" on Justia Law

In this interlocutory appeal, Motorola appealed from the district court's preliminary injunction to enjoin Motorola temporarily from enforcing a patent injunction that it obtained against Microsoft in Germany. The underlying case before the district court concerned how to interpret and enforce patent-holders' commitments to industry standard-setting organizations (SSOs), which established technical specifications to ensure that products from different manufacturers were compatible with each other. Specifically, the case involved the H.264 video coding standard set by International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the 802.11 wireless local area network standard set by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The court held that, under the unique circumstances of this case, the district court's narrowly tailored preliminary injunction was not an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc., et al" on Justia Law