The U.S. Supreme Court this week granted TC Heartland, LLC’s (“Heartland’s”) petition for a writ of certiorari regarding the patent infringement venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b). Heartland appealed the Federal Circuit’s refusal to dismiss the case or transfer a patent infringement lawsuit filed against Heartland from Delaware to Indiana, where Heartland is incorporated. The Supreme […]
In Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States today reversed the Federal Circuit’s decision upholding Apple Inc.’s nearly $400 million design patent award against Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Apple secured the award after a jury found that Samsung infringed Apple’s design patents covering the iPhone’s iconic front face with rounded corners […]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held this week in In re Queen’s University that some communications between patent applicants and non-attorney patent agents are legally privileged, recognizing, for the first time by that court, a “patent-agent privilege.” The court overturned the Eastern District of Texas’s order compelling production of communications between […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
Much has been written about what the Supreme Court decided in Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc. However, the case is more important for what the Court did not decide, than for what was actually decided. On June 2, the Supreme Court reversed a Federal Circuit decision concerning what constitutes indirect infringement of a patent. […]
