The Ninth Circuit has affirmed Microsoft’s $14.5 million jury verdict against Motorola, upholding the first federal bench trial decision setting a fair, abortion reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing rate. Armed with the court’s FRAND guidance, the jury found Motorola violated its commitment to license its H.264 (video encoding) and 802.11 (WiFi) standard-essential patents (SEPs) under […]
Imagine you are driving to Flagstaff for the weekend and, as you approach Camp Verde, you really could go for a McDonald’s hamburger. You see a McDonald’s sign from the highway, take the exit, and learn that the sign actually directs you to a Burger King. “Oh well,” you think, “I guess I’ll take Burger […]
In 1964, the Supreme Court held, in Brulotte v. Thys Co., that a patent owner may not receive royalties on a patent after the patent expires. Today, in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, the Supreme Court declined to overturn Brulotte, relying on stare decisis, which “carries enhanced force when a decision, like Brulotte, interprets a statute.” […]
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) administers post-grant patent proceedings under the America Invents Act. The PTAB has invalidated many patent claims, and has been referred to as a patent “death squad.” But a recent Federal Circuit decision reversed the PTAB’s holding that claims owned by Proxyconn, Inc., were invalid, delivering encouraging news to patent […]
The Supreme Court decided today in Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. that an accused infringer’s good-faith belief that a patent is invalid, standing alone, is not a defense to induced infringement. As discussed in greater detail in our earlier post, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling that prohibited Cisco from presenting […]
Applying the Supreme Court’s new “reasonable certainty” standard for patent definiteness in Biosig Instruments, Inc. v. Nautilus, Inc. (2015) (Nautilus III), the Federal Circuit again held that Biosig’s patent for a heart rate monitor is not indefinite. In Nautilus II (2014), the Supreme Court rejected the Federal Circuit’s “insolubly ambiguous” standard for indefiniteness, but did not determine whether Biosig’s […]
Today, the Supreme Court held in B&B Hardware v. Hargis Industries that likelihood-of-confusion decisions by the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) can have preclusive effect in federal court. Hargis applied to register the mark SEALTITE and B&B opposed, based on its registration for SEALTIGHT. The TTAB sustained B&B’s […]
On January 20, 2015, in Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., the Supreme Court reallocated power between federal district courts and the Federal Circuit in the patent claim construction process. For many years, the Federal Circuit has reviewed all district court claim constructions de novo, without deference to the district court. Today, the Court held […]
On December 5, 2014, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Commil USA, LLC, v. Cisco Systems, Inc., to decide whether a defendant’s good-faith belief that a patent is invalid is a defense to induced infringement. Previously, a divided panel of the Federal Circuit held that a Texas district court should have allowed evidence that Cisco believed […]
The Arizona Supreme Court decided yesterday in Orca Communications Unlimited v. Noder that Arizona’s version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, A.R.S. § 44-401 et seq., does not preempt common law tort claims for misappropriation of confidential information that does not rise to the level of a statutory “trade secret.” The majority of jurisdictions deciding the preemption issue […]
