Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) filed the instant suit for infringement of CSIRO’s U.S. Patent No. 5,487,069 (“’069 patent”) against Cicso Systems, Inc. The district court accepted a joint stipulation that Cisco would not contest infringement or validity. After a bench trial on damages, the district court awarded entered judgment for CSIRO in the amount of $16,243,067. Cisco appealed, challenging the district court’s damages award. The Federal Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded for the district court to revise its damages award, holding (1) the methodology employed by the district court in this case was not contrary to damages law; but (2) the district court erred in not accounting for the ‘069 patent’s standard-essential status and in its reasons for discounting a relevant license agreement. Remanded for the district court to revise its damages award. View "Commonwealth Scientific & Indus. Research Org. v. Cisco Sys., Inc." on Justia Law

MCM Portfolio LLC owns U.S. Patent No. 7,162,549 (the ‘549 patent). Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) filed a petition requesting inter partes review of claims 7, 11, 19, and 21 of the ‘549 patent. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that there was a reasonable likelihood that HP would prevail with respect to at least one of the challenged claims based on obviousness and rejected MCM’s argument that it could not institute inter partes review under 35 U.S.C. 315(b). Thereafter, the Board issued a final decision concluding that the challenged claims would have been obvious. MCM appealed. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the Court lacks jurisdiction to review the Board’s decision that the institution of inter partes review was not barred by 35 U.S.C. 315(b); (2) on the merits, inter partes review does not violate Article III or MCM’s right to a trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment; and (3) the Board correctly found that claims 7, 11, 19, and 21 of the ‘549 patent would have been obvious. View "MCM Portfolio LLC v. Hewlett-Packard Co." on Justia Law

In CardSoft v. VeriFone, Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s decision in favor of CardSoft. The district court adopted CardSoft’s proposed construction for the claim term “vertical machine." Applying the district court’s construction, a jury determined that certain VeriFone devices infringed claim 11 of the 6,934,945 patent and claim 1 of the 7,302,683 patent. The federal circuit concluded that the district court erred in its construction of “vertical machine” and that CardSoft waived any argument of infringement under the correct construction. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded the CardSoft decision, determining that the Federal Circuit must review a district court’s ultimate interpretation of a claim term as well as its interpretations of “evidence intrinsic to the patent” de novo and its subsidiary factual findings about extrinsic evidence for clear error. The Federal Circuit again reversed the district court’s construction of the term “virtual machine,” holding (1) the district court’s construction is entitled to de novo review because the case does not involve the factual findings to which the Court owes deference under Teva; and (2) the district court erred by failing to give “virtual machine” its ordinary and customary meaning, and CardSoft waived any argument of infringement under the correct construction. View "CardSoft, LLC v. VeriFone, Inc." on Justia Law

Straight Path IP Group owns U.S. Patent No. 6,108,704 (“the ’704 patent”), entitled Point-to-Point Internet Protocol, which describes protocols for establishing communication links through a network. Sipnet EU S.R.O. filed a petition for inter partes review of the ‘704 patent, requesting cancellation of claims 1-7 and 32-42, as anticipated by and obvious over several prior-art references. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board conducted the review and reached a final decision canceling the challenged claims based on determinations of anticipation and obviousness. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the Board adopted a claim construction in arriving at its decision that was erroneous, even under the broadest-reasonable-interpretation standard. Remanded for further proceedings under the correct construction. View "Straight Path IP Group, Inc. v. Sipnet EU S.R.O." on Justia Law

In 2009, a jury found Akamai’s 703 patent not invalid and directly infringed by Limelight, but the court entered judgment as a matter of law overturning the infringement verdict on the basis of divided infringement. After several rounds of appeals and remands, culminating with the en Federal Circuit’s reversal of the district court’s JMOL determination on the divided infringement issue, the Federal Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in its claim constructions of the terms “tagging” and “optimal” and appropriately instructed the jury and did not err in allowing Akamai to present a theory by its lost profits expert. The court ordered reinstatement of the jury’s original verdict and damages award. View "Akamai Techs., Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc." on Justia Law

Verinata and Ariosa compete in the field of noninvasive prenatal diagnostics, including testing for fetal chromosomal abnormalities. Verinata owns the 430 patent, which describes methods of noninvasive prenatal testing for the presence of fetal chromosomal abnormalities, particularly “aneuploidy,” i.e., the presence of an abnormal number of copies of a chromosome. Ariosa petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for inter partes review and challenged the claims for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103. The Board concluded that Ariosa had not met its burden of proving that claims 1–18 and 19–30 would have been obvious.The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded because the Board’s language suggests it did not sufficiently consider a 2008 patent that discloses a method of determining fetal aneuploidy by isolating fetal cells, not cell-free DNA. View "Ariosa Diagnostics v. Verinata Health, Inc." on Justia Law

Netlist’s 537 patent, entitled “Memory Module with a Circuit Providing Load Isolation and Memory Domain Translation” has a 2006 application date and relates to computer system memory modules, which Netlist designs and manufactures. The invention improves the performance or capacity of the memory modules. Inphi sought inter partes reexamination in 2010. The examiner rejected claims 1–9, 12–31, and 34–44 as obvious in view of the prior art. To overcome the rejection, Netlist amended its claims, narrowing them. Thereafter, the examiner withdrew the rejection of the claims and issued a final decision. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirmed, rejecting an argument that the amendment, which introduced a negative claim limitation, failed to satisfy the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112, paragraph 1. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the Board’s determination that the negative claim limitation met the requirements of section 112, paragraph 1 was supported by substantial evidence; properly described, alternative features are sufficient to satisfy the written description standard of section 112, paragraph 1 for negative claim limitations. View "Inphi Corp. v. Netlist, Inc." on Justia Law

Cubist Pharmaceuticals owns five follow-on patents that relate to the antibiotic daptomycin, which it sells under the name Cubicin. Hospira sought authorization to sell a generic version of Cubist’s daptomycin product, which led Cubist to file suit charging Hospira with patent infringement (Hatch-Waxman Act, 21 U.S.C. 355 and 35 U.S.C. 156 and 271(e)(2). The district court held, and the Federal Circuit affirmed, that some of the asserted claims of four of Cubist’s patents were invalid for anticipation and all the asserted claims of those patents sdfd invalid for obviousness. As for the fifth patent, the court held the two asserted claims not invalid and ruled that Hospira’s proposed products infringed those claims. View "Cubist Pharma., Inc. v. Hospira, Inc." on Justia Law

The International Trade Commission investigated DeLorme for violating the Tariff Act, 19 U.S.C. 1337, by importing, selling for importation, or selling after importation “two-way global satellite communication devices, system and components thereof” that allegedly infringed BriarTek’s patent, directed to emergency monitoring and reporting systems comprising a user unit and a monitoring system that communicate through a satellite network. The accused products included DeLorme’s InReach satellite-communication devices and software used with the devices. The Commission terminated the investigation based on entry of a consent order, in which DeLorme agreed not to import, sell for importation, or sell or offer for sale within the U.S. after importation any two-way global satellite communication devices, system, and components thereof, that infringe the Patent until the expiration, invalidation, or unenforceability of the Patent. In 2013, the Commission instituted an enforcement proceeding based on BriarTek’s allegations that DeLorme sold InReach devices containing imported components. DeLorme sought declaratory judgment of noninfringement and invalidity of the patent. While DeLorme’s action was pending, the Commission found that DeLorme violated the Order and imposed a civil penalty of $6,242,500. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the Consent Order instead prohibited DeLorme from using imported components only if the components themselves infringed the patent. View "DeLorme Publ'g Co., Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n" on Justia Law

Advanced Steel owns a patent describing systems and methods of loading shipping containers with bulk material for storage or transport. Material is loaded into the top of a rectangular container packer, which is moved along a transfer base by a hydraulically powered piston-and-cylinder unit toward a shipping container. A second piston-and-cylinder unit then pushes the material out of the container packer and into the shipping container by a push blade. The district court entered summary judgment, and the Federal Circuit affirmed, that the patent was not infringed by “Acculoader,” which has a container packer piston-and-cylinder unit connected to the floor of the container packer, approximately 35% down its length. The court determined that the patent did not contemplate a particular definition of the term “proximate end” and that the ordinary meaning applies. In the Acculoader, the “connection point [of the container packer piston-and-cylinder unit to the container packer] is not at the proximate end,” so that “the Acculoader does not literally infringe the 950 patent.” On the doctrine of equivalents, the court determined that “[n]o reasonable jury could find [the Acculoader’s] connection point to be equivalent to the ‘container packer proximate end.’” View "Advanced Steel Recovery, LLC v. X-Body Equip., Inc." on Justia Law