Justia Patents Opinion Summaries

Raytheon and GE compete in the market to supply propulsion engines to the commercial aviation industry. Raytheon’s patent, entitled “Gas Turbine Engine with Low Stage Count Low-Pressure Turbine,” claims a two-stage high-pressure turbine engine for commercial airplanes. The patent issued in 2014. In 2016, GE petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for inter partes review, asserting that certain claims were unpatentable as obvious based on the combination of two prior art references. The Board found five claims nonobvious. GE filed an unsuccessful request for rehearing challenging the Board’s application of the legal standard for both teaching away and motivation to combine. Raytheon moved to dismiss GE’s appeal for lack of standing.The Federal Circuit vacated. Having alleged sufficient facts to establish that it is engaging in an activity that creates a substantial risk of future infringement, GE has standing to bring its appeal. The Board lacked substantial evidence for its conclusions that prior art teaches away from using a two-stage high-pressure turbine and that GE did not establish a motivation to combine prior art. View "General Electric Co. v. Raytheon Technologies Corp." on Justia Law

Attia developed architecture technology called “Engineered Architecture” (EA). Google and Attia worked together on “Project Genie” to implement EA. Attia disclosed his EA trade secrets with the understanding that he would be compensated if the program were successful. After Attia executed patent assignments Google filed patent applications relating to the EA trade secrets and showed a prototype of the EA technology to investors. The patents were published in 2012. Google then allegedly excluded Attia from the project and used Attia’s EA technology to create a new venture. Attia sued Google for state law trade secret and contract claims. After Congress enacted the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), 130 Stat. 376, making criminal misappropriation of a trade secret a predicate act under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Attia added RICO claims, 18 U.S.C. 1962(c). The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the RICO and DTSA claims. The misappropriation of a trade secret before the enactment of the DTSA does not preclude a claim arising from post-enactment misappropriation or continued use of the same trade secret but Attia lacked standing to assert a DTSA claim. Google’s 2012 patent applications placed the information in the public domain and extinguished its trade secret status. The court rejected an argument that Google was equitably estopped from using the publication of its patent applications to defend against the DTSA claim. View "Attia v. Google, LLC" on Justia Law

AndroGel, a testosterone replacement therapy, generated billions of dollars in sales, The Federal Trade Commission sued the owners of an AndroGel patent under Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 21 U.S.C. 301, alleging that they filed sham patent infringement suits against Teva and Perrigo and entered into an anticompetitive reverse-payment agreement with Teva. The FTC accused the defendants of trying to monopolize and restrain trade over AndroGel. The District Court dismissed the FTC’s claims to the extent they relied on a reverse-payment theory but found the defendants liable for monopolization on the sham-litigation theory. The court ordered the defendants to disgorge $448 million in profits but denied the FTC’s request for an injunction.The Third Circuit reversed in part. The district court erred by rejecting the reverse-payment theory and in concluding that the defendants’ litigation against Teva was a sham. The court did not err in concluding the Perrigo litigation was a sham and that the defendants had monopoly power in the relevant market. The FTC has not shown that monopolization entitles it to any remedy. The court did not abuse its discretion in denying injunctive relief. The court erred by ordering disgorgement because that remedy is unavailable under Section 13(b). View "Federal Trade Commission v. AbbVie Inc" on Justia Law

Mazur discovered a process for creating “black silicon” by irradiating a silicon surface with ultra-short laser pulses to create a textured surface; the resulting black silicon has electronic properties different from traditional silicon. Several patents issued, including the 467 patent, from a 2001 patent application. SiOnyx was formed to commercialize black silicon. In 2006, SiOnyx met with Hamamatsu, which produces silicon-based photodetector devices. The parties entered into a nondisclosure agreement (NDA), providing that a party receiving confidential information shall maintain the information in strict confidence for seven years after the expiration of the agreement and acknowledges that the disclosing party claims ownership of the information and all patent rights. While the NDA was in effect, SiOnyx provided to Hamamatsu proposed architectures and a manufacturing process for a photodetector device, which were marked as confidential. Hamamatsu ultimately represented that it wished to develop its products alone. The NDA expired in 2008. In 2009, Hamamatsu notified SiOnyx that Hamamatsu intended to introduce a new photodiode that it did not believe infringed SiOnyx’s intellectual property or breached Hamamatsu’s confidentiality obligations. Hamamatsu filed patent applications in several countries. In 2010, Hamamatsu began releasing the accused products. SiOnyx began selling its own photodetector products. In 2014 a customer alerted SiOnyx to Hamamatsu’s patents.The Federal Circuit affirmed that Hamamatsu breached the NDA and infringed the 467 patent. SiOnyx is entitled to sole ownership of the disputed U.S. Patents. The district court erred in failing to grant SiOnyx sole ownership of the Disputed Foreign Patents. View "Sionyx LLC v. Hamamatsu Photonics K.K." on Justia Law

VidStream’s patent, titled: “Recording and Publishing Content on Social Media Websites,” has a priority date of May 2012. Twitter filed two petitions for inter partes review (IPR), with method claims 1–19 in one petition, and medium and system claims 20–35 in the other. Twitter cited the Bradford book as the primary reference for both petitions, combined with other references. With the petitions, Twitter filed copies of several pages of the Bradford book and explained their relevance to the claims. Twitter also filed a Bradford 2011 copyright page and copies of archived webpages from the Internet Archive, showing the Bradford book listed on a publicly accessible website bearing a November 2011 website date and website pages dated December 6, 2011, showing the Bradford book available for purchase from Amazon.The Patent Trial and Appeal Board held that claims 1–35 are unpatentable as obvious. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s holding that Bradford is prior art. The Board permitted both sides to provide evidence concerning the reference date of the Bradford book; the evidence well supports its finding that Bradford was published and publicly accessible before the patent’s 2012 priority date. With Bradford as the primary reference, VidStream did not appeal the unpatentability of claims 1–35. View "VidStream LLC v. Twitter, Inc." on Justia Law

Vectura sued GSK in 2016, alleging direct infringement of claim 3 of the 991 patent, which concerns the production of “composite active particles” for use in pulmonary administration, such as in dry-powder inhalers. The composite active particles described in the patent consist of additive material that is adhered to particles of the active ingredient. The active ingredient produces the desired chemical or biological effect, while the additive particles promote the dispersion and delivery of the active ingredient into the lungs when the inhaler is activated.The Federal Circuit affirmed holdings that the patent was infringed and not invalid. The court rejected arguments that Vectura failed to present substantial evidence that the accused inhalers use additive material that “promotes the dispersion” of the active material, that the district court’s construction of the term “composite active particles” was erroneous, that there were flaws in the calculation of the royalty proposed by Vectura’s damages expert, and that Vectura made prejudicial references to GSK’s sales and advanced an improper “pennies on the dollar” argument in comparing Vectura’s royalty request to GSK’s sales. View "Vectura Ltd. v. GlaxoSmithKline, LLC" on Justia Law

Alleshouse and Yeh are named as the inventors on the 685 and 189 patents, which claim water-park attractions that individuals may ride as if surfing, and on the 433 patent, which claims nozzle configurations for regulating water flow in such attractions. Pacific, the company Alleshouse and Yeh formed to develop and market such attractions, is the assignee of the patents. Whitewater is the successor of Wave, which employed Alleshouse until just before he went into business with Yeh and the patented inventions were conceived. Whitewater sued Alleshouse, Yeh, and Pacific, claiming that Alleshouse had to assign each of the patents to Whitewater, as Wave’s successor, under the terms of Alleshouse’s employment contract with Wave. Whitewater also claimed that Yeh, who had not been employed by Whitewater or its predecessors and therefore was not under any alleged assignment duty, was improperly listed as an inventor on each of the patents.The district court held that Alleshouse breached the employment agreement, so Whitewater was entitled to an assignment of the patent interests, and Yeh was improperly joined as an inventor. The Federal Circuit reversed, The contract’s assignment provision is void under California law, (Labor Code 2870, 2872; Business and Professions Code 16600), so Whitewater lacks standing to contest inventorship. View "Whitewater West Industries Ltd. v. Alleshouse" on Justia Law

SIPCO’s patent explains communicating information from a previously unconnected, remote device to a central location by setting up a two-step communication path through intermediate nodes to use the nodes’ already-provided link (e.g., a public-switched telephone network) to the central location. The remote device communicates wirelessly to an intermediate node. The Patent Board found that the patent was not exempt from covered business method (CBM) review under the “technological invention” exception and found five claims patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 and unpatentable for obviousness under section 103. The Federal Circuit vacated.The Supreme Court remanded for further consideration in light of the Court’s 2020 “Thryv” decision. The Federal Circuit then affirmed the Board’s obviousness determination and did not address the Board’s patent-ineligibility decision under section 101. The Thryv decision makes clear that the threshold determination that the patent qualifies for CBM review is non-appealable under 35 U.S.C. 324(e); SIPCO’s challenge is nothing more than a contention that the agency should have refused to institute CBM review View "SIPCO, LLC v. Emerson Electric Co." on Justia Law

Google’s 765 application relates to “distributed caching for video-on-demand systems, and in particular to a method and apparatus for transferring content within such video-on-demand systems.” The proposed invention presents a solution for determining how to stream content to set-top boxes and where to store said content among the content servers, be it at one or more video server offices or smaller, partial-content libraries at local servers (video home offices). The examiner rejected certain claims under 35 U.S.C. 103, as obvious in view of prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed, declining to address certain of Google’s arguments as waived. View "In Re Google Technology Holdings LLC" on Justia Law

Fein was a consultant for Ferring Pharmaceuticals, involved in a project involving desmopressin, a synthetic analog of the naturally occurring hormone arginine vasopressin, which regulates the body’s retention of water. Fein suggested administration as a waterless orodispersible form to improve the bioavailability of the desmopressin. In 2002, Ferring filed a Great Britain Patent Application, covering an orodispersible desmopressin formulation but did not list any inventors. When Ferring experienced production delays, it undertook another clinical study with an intravenous desmopressin formulation. Fein was selected to oversee the U.S. study and suggested certain changes. After Ferring terminated Fein’s consulting agreement, both parties continued to test various formulations. Both Ferring and Fein filed patent applications. Fein’s company sold the right to commercialize a low-dose desmopressin intranasal spray.Ferring unsuccessfully requested reexamination of Fein’s patent, then filed a complaint asserting state law claims and claims for correction of inventorship of the Fein patents under 35 U.S.C. 256. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment, finding that conduct occurring before the issuance of Fein's patents could give rise to equitable estoppel of claims for correction of inventorship. The court noted Ferring’s inaction for over seven years following letters from Fein’s attorney. On counterclaims for correction of inventorship of Ferring’s patents, the court granted Ferring judgment. The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded for further development of the record, noting the fact-laden equitable issue and the need to avoid a rush to judgment. View "Ferring B.V. v. Allergan, Inc." on Justia Law