The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held today in MCM Portfolio LLC v. Hewlett-Packard Co. that inter partes review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board are constitutional, rejecting MCM Portfolio’s bid to escape the PTAB’s earlier ruling that invalidated the company’s patent claims. The Federal Circuit rejected MCM Portfolio’s […]
Laches remains applicable in the patent context to bar pre-suit damages after an en banc Federal Circuit ruling late last week in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products. Last year in the “Raging Bull” decision (Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), the Supreme Court held that laches could not bar copyright infringement damages within the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) acquire patent rights and attempt to generate revenue by licensing or litigating the patents. In September 2013, the FTC announced its decision to collect empirical data to study the effects of PAE activities. Recently, on November 6, 2014, the FTC agreed to settle charges against MPHJ Technology Investments, LLC, a PAE […]
