Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

Licensees entered into a licensing agreement with Safeblood Tech for the exclusive rights to market patented technology overseas. After learning that they could not register the patents in other countries, Licensees sued Safeblood for breach of contract and sued Safeblood, its officers, and patent inventor for fraud, constructive fraud, and violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA), Ark. Code 4-88-101 to -115. The district court dismissed the fraud claims at summary judgment. The remaining claims proceeded to trial and a jury found for Licensees, awarding them $786,000 in contract damages and no damages for violations of the ADTPA. The district court awarded Licensees $144,150.40 in prejudgment interest. The Eighth Circuit reversed as to the common-law fraud claim and the award of prejudgment interest, but otherwise affirmed. Licensees produced sufficient evidence that the inventor made a false statement of fact; the district court did not abuse its discretion when it gave the jury a diminution-in-product-value instruction; and Licensees waived their inconsistent-verdict argument. View "Yazdianpour v. Safeblood Techs., Inc." on Justia Law

Before 1994, 35 U.S.C. 154 provided that a patent’s term ran from the date of issue. That term still begins on the date of issuance, but generally ends 20 years after the application was filed. Patent Term Adjustments (PTAs) address delays in the examination process. Category A applies when the PTO does not issue section 132 notification or provide section 151 notice of allowance within 14 months. Category B applies if the PTO fails to issue a patent three years after the actual filing date; category C covers delays due to interference, secrecy order, or successful appeal. Gilead filed the 374 application covering the compound cobicistat on February 22, 2008. The Examiner, finding more than one patentably distinct invention, issued a “restriction requirement” on November 18, 2009, dividing Gilead’s claims into four groups and directing it to select a subset. Gilead responded on February 18, 2010, selecting one for examination. Gilead filed a supplemental information disclosure statement on April 16, 2010, disclosing co-pending applications. The PTO issued notice of allowance on July 29, 2011; the patent issued on April 3, 2012. The PTO issued 245 days of “A Delay” and 406 days of “B Delay,” reduced by 35 days of overlapping and 57 days of applicant-induced delay (between Gilead’s initial reply and its supplemental IDS). The PTO rejected an argument that the supplemental IDS did not cause actual delay. The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment upholding the calculation. View "Gilead Sciences, Inc. v. Lee" on Justia Law

Pacing’s 843 patent is directed to methods and systems for pacing users during activities that involve repeated motions, such as running, cycling, and swimming. The preferred embodiment of the patent describes a method for aiding a user’s pacing by providing a tempo (for example, the beat of a song or flashes of light) corresponding to the user’s desired pace. Pacing alleged that Garmin GPS fitness watches and microcomputers used by runners and bikers infringed the patent. The Garmin Connect website allows users to design and transfer workouts to the Garmin devices. Workouts consist of a series of intervals to which the user can assign a duration and target pace value. The devices display the intervals of a particular workout, for example, by counting down the time for which the user intends to maintain a particular pace. The devices may also display actual pace, e.g., 50 to 70 steps per minute. The devices do not play music or output a beat. The Federal Circuit affirmed entry of summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Garmin. Merely displaying the rate of a user’s pace—for example, “100 steps per minute”—does not produce a sensible tempo; Garmin’s devices are not repetitive motion pacing devices. View "Pacing Techs., LLC v. Garmin Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

Soverain Software sued Victoria’s Secret and Avon for infringement of its patents relating to virtual shopping carts and to using a hypertext statement so that users can access information about past orders. The district court found that defendants infringed certain claims and that those claims were not invalid. After the district court’s judgment, the Federal Circuit, in 2013, decided Soverain Software LLC v. Newegg Inc., finding certain of the claims invalid as obvious The Federal Circuit then reversed as to Victoria’s Secret and Avon, holding that issue preclusion applies as a result of the Newegg case, and that the asserted claims here are therefore invalid. View "Soverain Software, LLC v. Victoria's Secret Direct Brand Mgmt., LLC" on Justia Law

United owns three patents that recite systems for using a landline telephone connection for both voice communication and data transmission. They are directed to the use of exchanges that combine the voice and data components of the signal for transmission over the telephone line, and filters that separate those components so that they can be received as separate voice and data signals by a user. In 2002, United’s predecessor sued EarthLink, charging direct infringement because EarthLink offered its customers an Internet connection service based on a broadband digital communications technology, Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). EarthLink argued that the accused ADSL system did not include a “telephone device” as required by all asserted claims. The jury returned a general verdict of non-infringement. The Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion. In 2011, United sued CenturyTel and Qwest for infringing the same claims of the three patents. The district court dismissed on collateral estoppel grounds, noting that United did not articulate how the defendants’ systems were different from the systems that were the subjects of the Earthlink trial other than that the defendants’ services included telephone devices. The Federal Circuit reversed, reasoning that the earlier verdict could have been based on several grounds. View "United Access Techs., LLC v. CenturyTel Broadband Servs., LLC" on Justia Law

Fenner’s 706 patent is directed to personal communication services (PCS) systems, whereby users are provided with the ability to access a communications network from diverse locations. Before the development of PCS systems, call servicing and billing were specific to a particular communications device at a fixed location. In PCS systems, telephone service can be identified independent of a telephone unit, and each user of a particular device has a personal identification number by which call servicing and billing are identified with the user, and not with a particular telephone unit. The district court entered summary judgment, finding that Verizon did not infringe claim 1 of the patent. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the district court’s construction of the term “personal identification number,” as “a number separate from a billing code (as construed herein), identifying an individual system user, which is associated with the individual and not the device” and of “billing code” to mean “a code separate from the personal identification number (as construed herein), identifying a particular billing authority (as construed herein).” View "Fenner Inv., Ltd. v. Cellco P'ship" on Justia Law

Garmin petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for inter partes review (IPR) of claims 10, 14, and 17 of the Cuozzo’s 074 patent, entitled “Speed Limit Indicator and Method for Displaying Speed and the Relevant Speed Limit,” issued in 2004. The patent discloses an interface which displays a vehicle’s current speed with the speed limit. In one embodiment, a red filter is superimposed on a white speedometer so that speeds above the legal speed limit are displayed in red while the legal speeds are displayed in white. A GPS unit tracks the vehicle’s location and identifies the speed limit at that location. The red filter automatically rotates when the speed limit changes. The PTO granted IPR. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a final decision finding claims 10, 14, and 17 obvious and denied Cuozzo’s motion to amend the patent by substituting new claims 21, 22, and 23 for claims 10, 14, and 17. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to review the PTO’s decision to institute IPR and that there was no error in the Board’s claim construction under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard, the obviousness determination, or denial of Cuozzo’s motion to amend. View "In re Cuozzo Speed Techs., LLC" on Justia Law

The descriptions for Papst Licensing’s 399 and449 patents are largely the same, the 449 patent having issued on a divisional application carved out of the application that became the 399 patent. The focus of both is an interface device for transferring data between an input/output data device and a host computer. The district court, applying and elaborating on its constructions of various claim terms, entered summary judgment of non-infringement, concluding that none of the accused digital cameras come within any of the asserted claims. The Federal Circuit vacated the summary judgment of non-infringement, rejecting the court’s constructions of construction of “interface device,” “second connecting device,” “data transmit/receive device,” “virtual file,” and “input/output device customary in a host device.” View "Papst Licensing GMBH v. Fujifilm Corp." on Justia Law

Imes’s U.S. patent application no. 09/874,423 is directed to a device for communicating digital camera image and video information over a network. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the examiner’s rejections of all pending claims 1-14 and 16-47 as either anticipated by or obvious over various references. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded with respect to independent claims 1-5 and 34-47. The Board’s construction of “wireless” to include communications along metal contacts of the removable memory card and the computer system was inconsistent with the broadest reasonable interpretation in view of the specification. The Board’s conclusion that a prior patent discloses a communications module operable to wirelessly communicate streaming video to a destination was not supported by substantial evidence. Imes did not challenge the rejections of claims 6-14 and 16-33. View "In re: Imes" on Justia Law

Teva’s patent covers a multiple sclerosis drug. When Sandoz tried to market a generic version of the drug, Teva sued for infringement. Sandoz countered that the patent was invalid because a claim that the active ingredient had “a molecular weight of 5 to 9 kilodaltons” was indefinite under 35 U. S. C. 112, for not stating which of three methods was used to determine that weight. The district court upheld the patent. Reversing, the Federal Circuit reviewed all aspects of claim construction de novo, including the determination of subsidiary facts. The Supreme Court vacated. When reviewing a district court’s resolution of subsidiary factual matters made during construction of a patent claim, the Federal Circuit must apply a “clear error,” not a de novo, standard of review. FRCP 52(a)(6) states: a court of appeals must not set aside “[f]indings of fact” unless they are “clearly erroneous.” Clear error review is particularly important in patent cases because a district judge has more opportunity to gain “familiarity with specific scientific problems and principles” than an appeals judge who must read a written transcript. When reviewing only evidence intrinsic to the patent, the judge’s determination is a determination of law, and the court of appeals will review that construction de novo; where the court needs to consult disputed extrinsic evidence to understand, for example, background science, courts need to make subsidiary factual findings about the extrinsic evidence. The ultimate construction of the claim is a legal conclusion subject to de novo review, but to overturn resolution of an underlying factual dispute, the appellate court must find that the judge, in respect to those findings, committed clear error. Here, the district court made a factual finding, crediting Teva’s expert’s account about how a skilled artisan would understand molecular weights. When the Federal Circuit reviewed the decision, it failed to accept that explanation without finding that the determination was “clearly erroneous.” View "Teva Pharma. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc." on Justia Law