Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

Nike’s 011 patent, entitled “Article of footwear having a textile upper,” relates to the “upper” component, which has the general shape of a foot and forms a void for receiving the foot that is accessed using the ankle opening. The upper is made from a knitted textile using any number of warp knitting or weft knitting processes and consists of “a single material element that is formed to exhibit a unitary (i.e., one-piece) construction.” The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a petition filed by Adidas and instituted inter partes review. Nike moved to amend, requesting cancellation of claims 1–46 and proposing substitute claims 47–50. The Board granted Nike’s motion to cancel claims 1–46, but denied the motion as to the substitute claims because Nike failed to meet its burden of establishing patentability of substitute claims 47–50. The Federal Circuit vacated the finding of obviousness and remanded; whether the claims are patentable requires a factual analysis that must be done by the Board in the first instance. View "Nike, Inc. v. Adidas, AG" on Justia Law

The patent focuses on methods and apparatuses for improving computer hard drives by reducing acoustic noise and vibrations. The Federal Circuit previously reversed a summary judgment ruling that no accused products met the patent’s “selected unwanted frequencies” limitation and remanded for further proceedings. On remand, the district court granted summary judgment on alternative grounds. The Federal Circuit then affirmed that Seagate’s accused hard drives do not infringe the asserted claims because they do not meet the user interface limitation of the claims and summary judgment of non-infringement by Compaq’s accused products, which do not meet the “commands” limitation of the claims at issue. The Federal Circuit vacated summary judgment of non-infringement by Compaq’s accused products as to other claims that do meet the “commands” limitation. The court held that the addition of the term “seek” in reexamination did not alter the scope of the claims, and reversed summary judgment of non-infringement based on the lower court’s determination that liability was precluded by intervening rights. View "Convolve, Inc. v. Compaq Computer Corp." on Justia Law

3M and TransWeb manufacture respirator filters, consisting of “nonwoven fibrous webs.” 3M sued Transweb for infringement of several patents. TransWeb sought a declaratory judgment of invalidity and non-infringement. A jury found the patents to be invalid based on TransWeb’s prior public use of the patented method. In accordance with an advisory verdict from the jury, the district court found the patents unenforceable due to inequitable conduct. An inventor for the patents and a 3M in-house attorney acted with specific intent to deceive the patent office as to the TransWeb materials. The district court awarded approximately $26 million to TransWeb, including trebled attorney fees as antitrust damages. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding sufficient corroborating evidence to support the finding of prior public use by TransWeb, and that attorney fees are an appropriate basis for damages under the antitrust laws in this context. TransWeb’s attorney fees appropriately flow from the unlawful aspect of 3M’s antitrust violation and are an antitrust injury that can properly serve as the basis for antitrust damages. View "Transweb, LLC v. 3M Innovative Props. Co." on Justia Law

Synopsys filed suit under the Administrative Procedure Act, seeking to invalidate the Patent and Trademark Office’s regulation that allows the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute inter partes review on “all or some of the challenged claims,” 37 C.F.R. 42.108. The suit also challenged the PTO’s practice of issuing final decisions on fewer than all of the claims raised in a petition. The district court dismissed, finding that “Congress intended to preclude this Court from reviewing inter partes proceedings under the APA” and, alternatively, that the appeal from a final written decision of an inter partes review provides an adequate remedy, barring judicial review. Synopsys also appealed from a final order of the Board concerning inter partes review of the 376 patent, as failing to address every claim challenged in the petition for inter partes review. The Federal Circuit upheld the validity of the regulation and the practice and dismissed the appeal as moot. View "Synopsys, Inc. v. Lee" on Justia Law

Rosebud fsued Adobe for infringing the 760 patent in 2010. The suit was dismissed in 2010. Rosebud sued Adobe for infringing the 699 patent in 2012; the suit that was dismissed in 2014, two weeks after Rosebud sued Adobe for the third time, alleging that it infringed the 280 patent. The 280 patent is a continuation of the 699 patent, which is a continuation of the 760 patent. The patents teach techniques for enabling collaborative work over a computer network. Adobe discontinued use of the accused technology 10 months before the issuance of the 280 patent and claimed it had no actual notice of the published application that led to the 280 patent. The court granted Adobe summary judgment, reasoning that Rosebud had not met 35 U.S.C. 154(d)’s requirement of actual notice because Rosebud’s evidence did not identify the 280 patent application by number, and was, at best, evidence of constructive notice. It rejected the idea that the parties’ litigation history created an affirmative duty for Adobe to search for Rosebud’s published applications. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Even when all reasonable inferences are made in Rosebud’s favor, no reasonable jury could find that Adobe had actual knowledge of the published 280 patent application. View "Rosebud LMS Inc. v. Adobe Sys. Inc." on Justia Law

AngioScore sells angioplasty balloon catheters (AngioSculpt), designed to open arterial blockages. Three AngioScore patents each list three inventors, but none lists Lotan as an inventor. TriReme is a competitor of AngioScore. Apparently concerned that AngioScore might charge TriReme with infringement, TriReme sought to acquire an interest in the AngioScore patents from Dr. Lotan, who performed consulting services for AngioScore. Lotan granted TriReme an exclusive license to “any and all legal and equitable rights” he held in the AngioScore patents. Lotan claimed that his inventive contribution arose from his work in connection with the development of the AngioSculpt catheters in 2003, which is reflected in the AngioScore patents. AngioScore’s defense was based on a 2003 consulting contract between AngioScore and Lotan. AngioScore asserts that it acquired rights to all inventive work completed by Lotan. TriReme brought suit for correction of inventorship, 35 U.S.C. 256. The district court dismissed, finding that TriReme lacked standing. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded for consideration of whether Lotan’s continued work on AngioSculpt after the contract’s effective date came within the contract’s language. View "TriReme Med., LLC v. Angioscore, Inc." on Justia Law

Samuel’s 575 patent, filed in 1997, claims inventions in the field of intraluminal stent technology. One type of intraluminal stent is a vascular stent. Vascular stents are used to treat medical conditions wherein a vascular wall is unduly constricted, as in the case of vascular stenosis, or unduly enlarged, as in the case of aneurysm. Either of these medical conditions poses an unacceptable risk of insufficient blood flow or vascular rupture. The 575 patent generally claims intraluminal stents that can be affixed to a vascular wall via the use of “an inflatable and deflatable cuff” without penetrating the vessel wall. In a 2013 infringement suit, defendant TriVascular filed a petition for inter partes review. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that TriVascular failed to demonstrate that the challenged claims were unpatentable over the applied art; adopted Samuels’ construction of “inflatable protrusions,” as “protrusions that are themselves inflatable, i.e., expandable by being filled with fluid;” and concluded that the 575 patent’s “inflatable protrusions” were not disclosed by the prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Trivascular, Inc. v. Samuels" on Justia Law

Columbia’s six patents involve applying data analytics techniques to computer security to detect and block malware. Columbia sued Symantec, alleging infringement. Based on the district court’s claim constructions, the parties agreed to a judgment of non-infringement and a finding of invalidity for indefiniteness. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, holding that the district court correctly construed the term “byte sequence feature” in connection with two patents and the term “probabilistic model of normal computer system usage” in connection with two other patents and correctly found certain claims indefinite. Reversing in part, the court held that the district court incorrectly construed the term “anomalous” in other patent claims by requiring the model of normal computer usage be built only with “typical, attack free data.” View "Trs. of Columbia Univ. v. Symantec Corp." on Justia Law

Oxycodone hydrochloride—the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in OxyContin®—is an opioid analgesic used to treat moderate to severe pain. In 2014 the FDA became concerned about 14-hydroxycodeinone, which belongs to a class of potentially dangerous compounds known as alpha, beta unsaturated ketones (ABUKs), and mandated that oxycodone hydrochloride manufacturers either provide evidence that the 14-hydroxy levels in their formulations were safe or reduce the amount of 14-hydroxy to less than 10 ppm. Purdue’s four low-ABUK patents recite an improved formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride, describing an oxycodone salt with extremely low levels of ABUKS. In 2011, Purdue sued Teva for infringement of the low-ABUK patents in response to Teva’s filing of an abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) seeking FDA approval to market generic versions of Reformulated OxyContin®. Purdue later filed similar lawsuits against others. In consolidated cases, the district court found that the asserted claims were infringed by Teva’s proposed generic product, but also held that all of the claims were invalid as anticipated by or obvious over the prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding claims obvious in light of prior art, 35 U.S.C. 103(a). View "Purdue Pharma L.P. v. Epic Pharma, LLC" on Justia Law

Avid asserted two patents against Harmonic; both concern data storage systems that allow users to store and retrieve large files such as movies. On one of two claim elements that were the focus of the dispute at trial, the district court gave the jury a narrow construction based on what the court determined to be a prosecution disclaimer. The jury found that Harmonic did not infringe the patents. The Federal Circuit vacated, finding that construction to be incorrect and that the error required setting aside the general non-infringement verdicts. Harmonic did not argue that the evidence compelled a finding of non-infringement independently of the construction error. Avid is entitled to a new trial although satisfaction of the particular claim element was settled because Harmonic did not dispute Avid’s contention that Harmonic’s system satisfies this claim element when properly construed. Avid has not shown entitlement to a judgment of infringement: the evidence did not compel a finding of infringement of the other claim element in dispute— which was without a claim construction. View "Avid Tech, Inc. v. Harmonic, Inc." on Justia Law