Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

Hepatocytes, a type of liver cell, are useful for testing, diagnostic, and treatment purposes. Fresh hepatocytes can only be obtained from liver resections or non-transplantable livers of organ donors; their lifespan is short. Supply is erratic. Before the 929 patent, scientists developed “cryopreservation” techniques, but the process could damage the hepatocytes and was unsuitable for multi-donor hepatocyte pools. Prevailing wisdom was that hepatocytes could be frozen only once before being used or discarded. The 929 parent's inventors discovered that some hepatocytes can survive multiple freeze-thaw cycles and developed an improved process: subjecting thawed cells to density gradient fractionation to separate viable from non-viable cells; recovering the viable cells; and refreezing the viable cells. After refreezing only the viable cells, the preserved hepatocyte preparations can be thawed and used later without unacceptable loss of viability. Hepatocyte samples from single donors can be pooled into a composite preparation that can be refrozen for later use. In an infringement suit, the court found the patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101, as directed to a patent-ineligible law of nature—that hepatocytes can survive multiple freeze-thaw cycles—and that the patented process lacks the requisite inventive concept. The Federal Circuit vacated. That each of the individual steps (freezing, thawing, and separating) were known independently in the art does not make the claim unpatentable; patent-eligibility does not turn on ease of execution or obviousness of application. View "Rapid Litig. Mgmt. v. Cellzdirect, Inc." on Justia Law

Apotex applied to the FDA, under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009, for permission to begin marketing a product allegedly “biosimilar” to Amgen’s FDA-approved Neulasta®. Apotex and Amgen proceeded under the Act’s process for exchanging information and channeling litigation about patents relevant to the application. In this suit, Amgen alleged that Apotex’s proposed marketing would infringe an Amgen patent. On Amgen’s motion, the district court preliminarily enjoined Apotex from entering the market unless it has given Amgen notice after receiving the requested FDA license and then waited 180 days, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 262(l)(8)(A). The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Act’s commercial-marketing provision is mandatory, with the 180-day period beginning only upon post-licensure notice, and an injunction was proper to enforce the provision against even a biosimilar product​ applicant that did engage in the statutory process for exchanging patent information and channeling patent litigation. View "Amgen Inc. v. Apotex Inc." on Justia Law

In January, 2000, Immersion filed an application (846 patent) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, disclosing a mechanism for providing haptic feedback to electronic device users. Immersion filed an International Application that published as WO 109 in July, 2001. The two written descriptions are materially identical. The WO 109 publication invalidates claims to its disclosed subject matter unless those claims were entitled to an effective filing date before July 26, 2002, 35 U.S.C. 102(b). On August 6, 2002, the day the 846 patent issued, Immersion filed the application for the 875 patent, which shared its description. Immersion asserted a January 2000 effective filing date (846 patent’s application date), citing 35 U.S.C. 120, under which, “[a]n application for patent for an invention disclosed adequately … in an application previously filed ... shall have the same effect, as to such invention, as though filed on the date of the prior application, if filed before the patenting or abandonment of or termination of proceedings on the first application or on an application similarly entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the first application.” This timing benefit shrinks the universe of “prior” art for determining validity. The district court held that the 875 application was not “filed before the patenting” of the 846 application because they were filed on the same day, so that the 875 patent’s filing date was August 6, 2002, rendering the patent invalid because the WO 109 publication was published more than one year earlier. The Federal Circuit reversed: an application may be “filed before the patenting” of the earlier application when both legal acts, filing and patenting, occur on the same day. View "Immersion Corp. v. HTC Corp." on Justia Law

Allied’s patent, “Multiple Tool Attachment System,” is directed to heavy machinery construction and demolition tools, such as metal cutting shears, plate shears, concrete crushers, and grapples, that can be attached to a universal body. Traditionally, such tools were separate. The system has a “quick change feature” for easy conversion to each of several tools. Genesis sought inter partes reexamination, asserting the patent was unpatentable because it was anticipated and obvious over prior art. During reexamination, Allied amended claims and added new claims. A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examiner allowed the amended claims and confirmed patentability. The Patent Trial and Appeals Board concluded that seven claims would have been obvious and allowed Allied to reopen prosecution. Allied submitted a second round of amendments. The examiner found the amendments did not overcome the PTAB’s ground of rejection. The PTAB affirmed, finding that prior art “teaches one of ordinary skill in the art the desirability of simplifying disassembly of jaws, and discloses a mechanism for doing so,” and that a person of ordinary skill in the art could have modified prior art to provide for a “wide range of angular movement.” The Federal Circuit affirmed, stating that substantial evidence supported a finding of motivation to combine prior art references. View "Allied Erecting & Dismantling Co., Inc. v. Genesis Attachments, LLC" on Justia Law

Pompe’s disease is a genetic condition associated with a deficiency or absence of the lysosomal enzyme acid α-glucosidase (GAA), which breaks down glycogen, a larger molecule, into glucose. In a person with Pompe’s disease, glycogen accumulates in the heart and muscles, causing progressive muscle weakness and respiratory symptoms, and, in early-onset cases, cardiac symptoms. Early efforts at enzyme replacement therapy failed because the injected enzyme was predominantly taken up by the patient’s liver. By 1997, research had progressed and the FDA approved Duke University’s application for Orphan Drug Designation for a new therapy, involving injection of a recombinant form of GAA. In 2013, Biomarin sought inter partes review of Genzyme’s patents, directed to treating Pompe’s disease with injections of GAA, asserting that claims were obvious, given the Duke press release and prior references. Genzyme argued that because all references described in vitro experiments, a person of ordinary skill would not find those experiments predictive of results in a human patient. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Board’s conclusion that “a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success at the time the invention was made,” and “no more than routine processes were needed” to achieve the results recited in the disputed claims. View "Genzyme Therapeutic Prods., Ltd. P'ship v. Biomarin Pharma., Inc." on Justia Law

ComplementSoft’s patent, issued in 2006, is directed to an “Integrated Development Environment for generating and maintaining source code . . . in particular, programmed in data manipulation languages,” and characterizes a development environment as comprising a set of software tools allowing users to develop, edit, and debug software for a particular programming language or set of programming languages. The contemplated development environment utilizes a graphical user interface and is particularly designed for data manipulation languages, including SAS®, which is developed by SAS. On SAS's petition for inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found all of the instituted claims, except for claim 4, unpatentable in view of prior art. The Federal Circuit agreed on the challenged constructions and determined that the Board did not need to address claims it did not institute. The court vacated the determination that claim 4 was patentable and remanded for the parties to address a new construction that the Board adopted in its final decision after previously interpreting the claim differently. The court noted that it is uncertain whether SAS will be able to show unpatentability of claim 4 even under the construction of “graphical representations of data flows” that the Board adopted and that it agreed with. View "SAS Inst., Inc. v. ComplementSof, LLC." on Justia Law

Indacon’s patent is directed to a system and method for searching, indexing, perusing, and manipulating files in a database, particularly through the insertion of automatically generated hyperlinks. Following the district court’s claim construction order, Indacon stipulated to noninfringement. The court entered final judgment in favor of Facebook. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the constructions of the claim terms “alias,” “custom link,” “custom linking relationship,” and “link term.” View "Indacon, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc." on Justia Law

Warsaw’s 973 patent claims oversized spinal implants; its 933 patent claims methods and devices for retracting tissue to create a working channel for minimally invasive spinal surgery. NuVasive’s patent relates to neuromonitoring during surgery. Warsaw sued NuVasive, alleging infringement; NuVasive counterclaimed, asserting infringement. A jury found that the asserted claims of the 973 patent were not invalid (infringement was not in dispute), that the asserted claims of the 933 patent were infringed under the doctrine of equivalents (validity was not in dispute), and that the asserted claims of the NuVasive patent were infringed (validity was not in dispute), and awarded damages for each. The Federal Circuit affirmed with respect to invalidity and infringement of all three patents, but remanded for a new trial on damages with respect to the 973 and 933 patents. The Supreme Court remanded for further consideration in light of its 2015 decision, Commil USA v. Cisco Systems, which reaffirmed that willful blindness can satisfy the knowledge requirement for active inducement under 35 U.S.C. 271(b). The First Circuit reaffirmed the district court’s judgment with respect to the NuVasive patent and otherwise reinstated its earlier judgment. There was substantial evidence from which a jury could reasonably have found knowledge or willful blindness to infringement. View "Warsaw Orthopedic, Inc. v. NuVasive, Inc." on Justia Law

Superior’s “Unloader Patents” are directed to a truck unloader system with a drive-over ramp system and a conveyor system to transport deposited material from a truck to a hopper. Its Support Strut Patents are directed to a telescoping support strut that holds up a conveyor system. Following a remand in Superior’s suit against Masaba, based on Masaba’s manufacture and sale of five different truck unloader models. the court granted summary judgment of noninfringement as to all asserted claims. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court correctly construed “ramp section,” “support frame,” and “channel beam.” View "Superior Indus., Inc. v. Masaba, Inc." on Justia Law

MSV’s “Terry patents” are a line of continuations beginning with the 895 patent; they concern techniques for providing access to a local area network (LAN) from a relatively distant computer. When two computers on the LAN transmit onto the medium concurrently, they create interference known as a “collision,” and the concurrent communications may be lost. It is not practical to use LAN protocols with collision detection over long distances, such as those spanned by telephone lines. The Terry patents describe an approach by which a computer may communicate with a LAN over the long distances covered by telephone lines, using a collision avoidance scheme rather than a collision detection scheme. In 2013, IWS sued several dozen hotels and coffee shops doing business in the Eastern District of Texas, alleging infringement by providing WiFi Internet access to customers using off-the-shelf WiFi equipment sold by Ruckus and Cisco. The district court entered final judgment of non-infringement, holding the asserted patent claims are limited to wired rather than wireless communications. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that no intrinsic or extrinsic evidence suggesting that “communications path” encompasses wireless communications. View "Ruckus Wireless, Inc. v. Innovative Wireless Solutions, LLC" on Justia Law