Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-13-01073/USCOURTS-ca13-13-01073-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert P. Cogan
Appellee
Does 1-20
Not party
Nath Law Group
Appellee
Neurorepair, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

NEUROREPAIR, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

THE NATH LAW GROUP AND ROBERT P. COGAN,

Defendants-Appellees,

AND

DOES 1-20,

Defendants.

______________________ 

2013-1073

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of California in No. 09-CV-0986, Judge 

John A. Houston.

______________________ 

Decided: January 15, 2015

______________________ 

MATTHEW KLIPSTEIN, of Denver, Colorado, argued for 

plaintiff-appellant. 

GREGOR A. HENSRUDE, Klinedinst PC, of San Diego, 

California, argued for defendants-appellees. With him on 

the brief were HEATHER L. ROSING and SAMUEL B.

STROHBEHN. 

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2 NEUROREPAIR, INC. v. THE NATH LAW GROUP

______________________ 

Before WALLACH, CHEN, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

WALLACH, Circuit Judge. 

The question before this court is whether a California 

state court malpractice case involving patent law representation was properly removed to a federal court. Under 

the principles of Gunn v. Minton, 133 S. Ct. 1059 (2013), 

it was not. 

Plaintiff-appellant NeuroRepair, Inc. (“NeuroRepair”) 

appeals from a final judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granting

partial summary judgment in favor of defendantsappellees The Nath Law Group and Robert P. Cogan 

(collectively, “Defendants”) on July 12, 2011, as well as

the district court’s orders (1) denying NeuroRepair’s 

motion for reconsideration on August 19, 2011, (2) granting Defendants’ motion in limine with respect to lost 

licensing opportunity of March 12, 2012, (3) entering 

judgment on September 26, 2012, in favor of Defendants, 

and (4) denying NeuroRepair’s motion for reconsideration 

on July 1, 2013, and all related post-judgment costs. 

Based on Gunn v. Minton, this court vacates and remands 

the district court’s judgments with instructions to remand 

the case to California state court. 

This court “[has] jurisdiction to decide whether the 

district court had jurisdiction under [28 U.S.C.] § 1338.” 

C.R. Bard, Inc. v. Schwartz, 716 F.2d 874, 878 (Fed. Cir. 

1983); see also Scherbatskoy v. Halliburton Co., 125 F.3d 

288, 291 (5th Cir. 1997) (finding the “right to determine if 

a district court has jurisdiction under [§] 1338” is a power 

that “concurrently exists with [the Federal Circuit and] 

the regional circuits”); Shaw v. Gwatney, 795 F.2d 1351, 

1353 n.2 (8th Cir. 1986) (A federal appellate court carries 

out “traditional and inherent functions [such] as deterCase: 13-1073 Document: 105-2 Page: 2 Filed: 01/15/2015
NEUROREPAIR, INC. v. THE NATH LAW GROUP 3

mining its own jurisdiction and supervising the exercise of 

jurisdiction by the district courts below it.”); cf. Maddox v. 

Merit Sys. Prot. Bd., 759 F.2d 9, 10 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (“If 

the MSPB does not have jurisdiction, then neither do we, 

except to the extent that we always have the inherent 

power to determine our own jurisdiction and that of the 

board.”). 

BACKGROUND

In December 2005, NeuroRepair retained Robert 

Cogan, an attorney with The Nath Law Group, to assist in 

the prosecution of certain patent applications. Over time, 

NeuroRepair became increasingly dissatisfied with what 

it viewed as slow progress and excessive legal fees, and in 

August 2007 NeuroRepair requested that Mr. Cogan 

transfer the relevant files to another law firm, Welsh & 

Katz, to continue prosecution before the United States 

Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). In September 

2007, Defendants filed a request to withdraw from representation of NeuroRepair before the USPTO, but continued to assist NeuroRepair with other matters. 

NeuroRepair filed suit against Defendants in the San 

Diego Superior Court on March 20, 2009, alleging professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of 

written contract, breach of oral contract, breach of implied 

covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligent misrepresentation, and false promise. Defendants removed the 

case to federal district court on May 7, 2009, on the 

ground that it was “a civil action relating to patents.” 

J.A. 55. 

After the district court entered judgment in Defendants’ favor on September 26, 2012, NeuroRepair timely 

filed this appeal challenging the district court’s subject 

matter jurisdiction. The principal issue this court must 

address is whether jurisdiction in the district court was 

proper in light of the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncement in Gunn v. Minton. 

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DISCUSSION

I. Standard of review 

“We review issues of jurisdiction de novo.” Prasco, 

LLC v. Medicis Pharm. Corp., 537 F.3d 1329, 1335 (Fed.

Cir. 2008). Under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a) (2012), a defendant 

may remove to federal district court “any civil action 

brought in a State court of which the district courts of the 

United States have original jurisdiction.” As this court 

stated in Jim Arnold Corp. v. Hydrotech Systems, Inc.: 

The question we must answer . . . is whether federal subject-matter jurisdiction would exist over 

this case had it originally been filed in federal 

court. If the answer is yes, then removal was 

proper, and the matter is before us on the merits; 

if the answer is no, then removal was improper 

and federal courts are without jurisdiction to determine the cause. 

109 F.3d 1567, 1571 (Fed. Cir. 1997).

II. Subject matter jurisdiction

At issue in this case is whether the district court 

would have had original jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1338,1 which gives federal district courts original jurisdiction over “any civil action arising under any Act of 

1 There does not appear to be a basis for jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (diversity of citizenship). 

“Where . . . appellants do not claim diversity of citizenship, there must be federal question jurisdiction.” Semiconductor Energy Lab. Co. v. Nagata, 706 F.3d 1365, 1369 

(Fed. Cir. 2013); ExcelStor Tech., Inc. v. Papst Licensing 

GmbH & Co. KG, 541 F.3d 1373, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2008). 

No claim of diversity was made here. 

 

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Congress relating to patents.” 28 U.S.C. § 1338(a).2 In 

Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp., the 

Supreme Court held a claim may “aris[e] under” the 

patent laws even where patent law did not create the 

cause of action, provided the “well-pleaded complaint 

establishes . . . that the plaintiff’s right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of 

federal patent law.” 486 U.S. 800, 808–09 (1988). 

In its recent decision in Gunn v. Minton, the Court 

made clear that state law legal malpractice claims will 

“rarely, if ever, arise under federal patent law,” even if 

they require resolution of a substantive question of federal patent law. 133 S. Ct. at 1065. The Court reasoned 

that while such claims “may necessarily raise disputed 

questions of patent law,” those questions are “not substantial in the relevant sense.” Id. at 1065, 1066. The 

Court emphasized that “[b]ecause of the backward-looking 

nature of a legal malpractice claim, the question is posed 

in a merely hypothetical sense” and that “[n]o matter how 

the state courts resolve that hypothetical ‘case within a 

case,’ it will not change the real-world result of the prior 

federal patent litigation.” Id. at 1066–67. In view of the 

absence of a question that was “significant to the federal 

system as a whole” and the “‘especially great’” state 

interest in regulating lawyers, the Court concluded that 

2 The second sentence of § 1338(a) was amended by 

the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act, Pub. L. No. 112-

29, § 19(a), 125 Stat. 284, 331 (2011) (“AIA”). NeuroRepair commenced this action before these amendments 

took effect on September 16, 2011, so this court applies 

the pre-AIA version of the statute. AIA § 19(e), 125 Stat. 

at 333; see also Wawrzynski v. H.J. Heinz Co., 728 F.3d 

1374, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (actions commenced before 

September 16, 2011, are not subject to the AIA amendments).

 

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Congress had not intended to bar state courts from deciding state legal malpractice claims simply because they 

may involve an underlying hypothetical patent issue. See 

id. at 1066, 1068 (quoting Goldfarb v. Va. State Bar, 421 

U.S. 773, 792 (1975)). 

The Court in Gunn explained that its earlier decision 

in Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering & Manufacturing, 545 U.S. 308 (2005), is properly 

viewed as setting forth a four-part test to determine when 

federal jurisdiction over a state law claim will lie. Gunn, 

133 S. Ct. at 1065. Under this test, a cause of action 

created by state law may nevertheless “arise under” 

federal patent law within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1338(a) if it involves a patent law issue that is “(1) 

necessarily raised, (2) actually disputed, (3) substantial, 

and (4) capable of resolution in federal court without 

disrupting the federal-state balance approved by Congress.” Id. Although the events in the present matter 

transpired prior to the decision in Gunn, the Supreme 

Court’s interpretation of federal civil law “must be given 

full retroactive effect in all cases still open on direct 

review and as to all events, regardless of whether such 

events predate or postdate [the Supreme Court’s] announcement of the rule.” Harper v. Va. Dep’t of Taxation, 

509 U.S. 86, 97 (1993). 

A. NeuroRepair’s suit would not “necessarily 

raise” issues of patent law

NeuroRepair’s suit fails Gunn’s jurisdictional test. An 

issue of patent law is “necessarily raised” if “a wellpleaded complaint establishes either that federal patent 

law creates the cause of action or that the plaintiff's right 

to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial 

question of federal patent law, in that patent law is a 

necessary element of one of the well-pleaded claims.” 

Christianson, 486 U.S. at 809; see also Grable, 545 U.S. at 

315 (finding a federal issue to be an “essential element” of 

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the cause of action); Gunn, 133 S. Ct. at 1065 (noting the 

plaintiff’s required showing in order to prevail “will 

necessarily require application of patent law to the facts 

of [his] case”). NeuroRepair’s claims of professional 

negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of written 

contract, breach of oral contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligent misrepresentation, and false promise are each created by state, not 

federal, law. See J.A. 62–68. Therefore, a patent law 

issue will be necessarily raised only if it is a necessary 

element of one of the well-pleaded claims. 

NeuroRepair’s state law claims, as presented in its 

complaint of March 20, 2009, include a number of references to patent issues. For example, its First Cause of 

Action for professional negligence asserts Defendants 

breached their duty of care “by, among other things, 

failing to communicate with Plaintiff . . . ; failing to competently and effectively pursue the Patent Applications; . . . [and] failing to accurately record and bill time.” 

J.A. 63. 

However, because NeuroRepair’s complaint sets forth 

multiple bases in support of its allegation of professional 

negligence, a court could find NeuroRepair is entitled to 

relief based on this allegation without ever reaching a 

patent law issue. See Immunocept, LLC v. Fulbright & 

Jaworski, LLP, 504 F.3d 1281, 1285 (Fed. Cir. 2007) 

(“Because it is the sole basis of negligence, the claim 

drafting error is a necessary element of the malpractice 

cause of action.”). Therefore, it would not “necessarily 

require the application of patent law to the facts of [this] 

case” for NeuroRepair “to prevail on [its] legal malpractice 

claim.” Gunn, 133 S. Ct. at 1065; see also Christianson, 

486 U.S. at 812 (“Since there are reasons completely 

unrelated to the provisions and purposes of federal patent 

law why petitioners may or may not be entitled to the 

relief [they] see[k] . . . , the claim does not ‘arise under’

federal patent law.”) (internal quotation marks and 

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citation omitted); Dixon v. Coburg Dairy, Inc., 369 F.3d 

811, 816 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (“A plaintiff’s right to 

relief for a given claim necessarily depends on a question 

of federal law only when every legal theory supporting the 

claim requires the resolution of a federal issue.”). Similarly, NeuroRepair could prevail on its remaining six 

causes of action under alternate bases that do not necessarily implicate an issue of substantive patent law. 

B. At least one patent law issue is actually disputed

Although a court would not necessarily be required to 

reach the patent law issues that underlie the causes of 

action alleged by NeuroRepair, at least one patent law 

issue is actually disputed by the parties. NeuroRepair 

claims Defendants’ wrongdoing hindered its ability to 

timely obtain patents of the same scope it would have 

obtained but for Defendants’ delay and mishandling. 

Defendants counter that the patent did not issue sooner 

because the claims as initially presented were not patentable and that Defendants had not narrowed the claims 

because “NeuroRepair had expressly ordered [Defendants] 

not to.” Appellees’ Br. 26. Whether the patent could have 

issued earlier and with broader claims is thus actually 

disputed by the parties. 

C. The patent issue in NeuroRepair’s suit is not 

“substantial”

Even if the disposition of this matter necessarily required the resolution of patent law issues, those issues 

would not be of sufficient importance “to the federal 

system as a whole,” as required under the third part of 

the Gunn test. 133 S. Ct. at 1066, 1068. “[I]t is not 

enough that the federal issue be significant to the particular parties in the immediate suit; that will always be true 

when the state claim ‘necessarily raise[s]’ a disputed 

federal issue . . . .” Id. at 1066. 

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The Supreme Court has described three nonexclusive 

factors that may help to inform the substantiality inquiry, 

none of which is necessarily controlling. See MDS (Can.) 

Inc. v. Rad Source Techs., Inc., 720 F.3d 833, 842 (11th 

Cir. 2013); see also Mikulski v. Centerior Energy Corp., 

501 F.3d 555, 570 (6th Cir. 2007). First, a substantial 

federal issue is more likely to be present if a “pure issue of 

[federal] law” is “dispositive of the case.” Empire 

Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. v. McVeigh, 547 U.S. 677, 

700 (2006). Second, a substantial federal issue is more 

likely to be present if the court’s resolution of the issue 

will control “numerous other cases.” Id. Third, a substantial federal issue is more likely to be present if “[t]he 

Government . . . has a direct interest in the availability of 

a federal forum to vindicate its own administrative action.” Grable, 545 U.S. at 315. 

i. No pure issue of federal law is dispositive

NeuroRepair asserts Defendants’ wrongdoing caused 

harm by, among other things, hindering its ability both to 

pursue the patent applications in a timely and effective 

manner and to obtain patents of the same scope it would 

have obtained but for Defendants’ delay and mishandling. 

Although resolution of these assertions could involve the 

application of substantive patent law principles, it is not 

clear from the record that any particular substantive 

patent law issue or issues would need to be resolved. 

Both claim scope and timing of issuance are likely to 

depend primarily on the particular facts and circumstances of the prior art, timely responses to office actions, etc., 

rather than on the interpretation of federal law. This is 

therefore unlike cases where a distinct issue of federal 

law was dispositive of the case. See, e.g., Gunn, 133 S. Ct. 

at 1065, 1066 (finding the viability of an experimental-use 

argument to be actually disputed and central to resolution 

of the case, but concluding this issue was not substantial

in the relevant sense); Grable, 545 U.S. at 311 (noting the 

underlying dispute centered on whether 26 U.S.C. § 6335 

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required personal service rather than service by mail); 

Jang v. Bos. Scientific Corp., 767 F.3d 1334, 1336 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014) (noting “Jang’s right to relief . . . depends on . . . 

whether the stents sold by [petitioners] would have infringed [Jang’s patents]”). Instead, the present matter 

involves a question of federal law, at most, as only one of 

several elements needed to prevail. See Empire 

HealthChoice, 547 U.S. at 701 (“[I]t takes more than a 

federal element to open the ‘arising under’ door.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also Mikulski, 501 F.3d at 571 (Even if the federal issue is resolved 

in their favor, “plaintiffs must still prove the remaining 

elements of fraudulent misrepresentation (such as intent) 

or breach of contract (such as the existence of a contract).”). 

In addition, NeuroRepair’s assertions with respect to 

patent scope and timing do not constitute the totality and 

perhaps not even the most significant part of the state 

law causes of action included in its complaint. These 

causes of action also include assertions of failure to communicate, overbilling, failure to accurately record time 

billed, failure to deliver work product, and misrepresentation of Cogan’s expertise in neuroscience. Additional 

factual issues are raised in the parties’ briefs, including 

whether Cogan represented himself as a partner of The 

Nath Law Group, whether he was in fact a partner, 

whether Cogan deliberately overbilled NeuroRepair, 

whether The Nath Law Group “deliberately concealed 

from NeuroRepair the firm’s internal investigation of 

Cogan,” Appellant’s Br. 14, when NeuroRepair became 

aware of the basis for its suit, and when NeuroRepair 

became aware of Cogan’s qualifications, Appellees’ Br. 40–

43. These and other factual issues related to NeuroRepair’s claims of Defendants’ professional conduct and 

alleged actions or inactions make clear this case does not 

present a “pure issue of law” that is “dispositive of the 

case.”

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ii. The court’s decision is unlikely to control numerous other cases

In arguing the resolution of the present matter will 

affect “subsequent litigation,” id. at 26, Appellees suggest 

that if a state court adjudicates this case, “a third-party 

infringer could conceivably be found liable for infringing a 

patent that its own state court previously found to be 

unpatentable,” id. at 27–28. This argument is unpersuasive. If a federal court finds a defendant liable for infringing a valid patent notwithstanding a prior state court 

determination of invalidity, it is self-evident the state 

court decision did not “control” the later federal court 

case. 

Moreover, to the extent a state court must address issues of substantive patent law, the court is likely to focus 

on whether the invention was patentable as initially 

claimed, as reflected in the assertions of Appellees themselves. See id. at 26 (arguing “the claims as initially 

presented were not patentable”) (emphasis added). Any 

determination of validity of claims that ultimately did not 

issue constitutes a hypothetical matter that would not 

affect the scope of any live patent. See Byrne v. Wood, 

Herron & Evans, LLP, 676 F.3d 1024, 1032 n.4 (Fed. Cir. 

2012) (O’Malley, J., dissenting from the denial of the 

petition for rehearing en banc) (stating, in the context of a 

patent prosecution malpractice claim, “the patent issue in 

any malpractice action will involve only an academic 

inquiry into what likely would have happened absent the 

attorney negligence, and the answer will affect only the 

result of the state law claim, not the rights or scope of any 

live patent”). If the state court action would neither affect 

the scope of any live patent nor require resolution of a 

novel issue of patent law, it is unclear how it could control 

numerous other cases or impact the federal system as a 

whole. 

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iii. The government does not have a direct interest 

in the availability of a federal forum to vindicate 

its own administrative action 

“[Q]uestions of [federal] jurisdiction over state-law 

claims require careful judgments about the nature of the 

federal interest at stake.” Grable, 545 U.S. at 317 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Grable involved a dispute over title to real property, a 

quintessential state law matter. See Or. ex rel. State 

Land Bd. v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 

378 (1977) (“This Court has consistently held that state 

law governs issues relating to . . . real property, unless 

some other principle of federal law requires a different 

result.”). The central issue, however, was whether the 

Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), in seizing Grable’s 

property to satisfy a delinquent tax debt and later selling 

the property to the defendant, had failed to notify Grable 

“in the exact manner required by [26 U.S.C.] § 6335(a).” 

Grable, 545 U.S. at 311. Resolution of the dispute required a determination of whether § 6335(a) required 

personal service or allowed service to be made by certified 

mail, id., a determination that would directly impact IRS 

practices. In finding federal jurisdiction proper, the Court 

noted the government’s “strong interest in the prompt and 

certain collection of delinquent taxes,” and the importance 

of ensuring the IRS could “satisfy its claims from the 

property of delinquents.” Id. at 315 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Given these considerations, the government had “a direct interest in the availability of a federal 

forum to vindicate its own administrative action.” Id. 

The federal interest asserted to be at stake in the present matter is far more nebulous than in Grable. Appellees assert state court jurisdiction “would be a recipe for 

inconsistency,” Appellees’ Br. 28, and “[i]f state courts 

start ruling on issues of this nature, subsequent patent 

prosecutions and litigation arising out of those patents 

will be difficult, to say the least,” id. at 26. These vague 

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assertions, which do not contain citations to authority, do 

not convincingly establish the USPTO or any other government agency has a “direct interest” in the outcome of 

this dispute, which is between private parties and relates 

to alleged legal malpractice and other state law claims. 

Grable, 545 U.S. at 315. 

D. If cases such as NeuroRepair’s were heard in 

federal court, it would disrupt the federal-state 

balance

Finally, to the extent federal interests are implicated 

by NeuroRepair’s state law claims, they do not outweigh 

the “especially great” interests of the state in regulating 

that state’s lawyers. See Gunn, 133 S. Ct. at 1068. Since 

Gunn, courts considering alleged violations of a variety of 

state laws have declined to find federal question jurisdiction notwithstanding the presence of an underlying issue 

of patent law. See, e.g., Forrester Envtl. Servs. Inc. v. 

Wheelabrator Techs., Inc., 715 F.3d 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2013)

(tortious interference with a contractual relationship); 

MDS (Can.), 720 F.3d at 842 (breach of contract); 

Mirowski Family Ventures, LLC v. Bos. Scientific Corp., 

958 F. Supp. 2d 1009 (S.D. Ind. 2013) (breach of patent 

license agreement); Airwatch LLC v. Good Tech. Corp., 

No. 1:13-cv-2870-WSD, 2014 WL 1651964 (N.D. Ga. Apr. 

24, 2014) (defamation); Bonnafant v. Chico’s FAS, Inc., 

No. 2:13-cv-893-FtM-29CM, 2014 WL 1664554 (M.D. Fla. 

Apr. 25, 2014) (state whistleblower legislation). 

In sum, federal jurisdiction is lacking here under 

Gunn because no federal issue is necessarily raised, 

because any federal issues raised are not substantial in 

the relevant sense, and because the resolution by federal 

courts of attorney malpractice claims that do not raise 

substantial issues of federal law would usurp the important role of state courts in regulating the practice of 

law within their boundaries, disrupting the federal-state 

balance approved by Congress.

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III. Defendants have not effectively distinguished

Gunn

Defendants seek to distinguish Gunn on the basis 

that it involved alleged malpractice within the patent 

litigation context while the present matter involves 

alleged malpractice within the patent prosecution context. 

Gunn made no such distinction. See 133 S. Ct. at 1066–67

(“Because of the backward-looking nature of a legal 

malpractice claim, the question is posed in a merely 

hypothetical sense.”) (emphasis added); id. at 1065 

(“[S]tate legal malpractice claims based on underlying 

patent matters will rarely, if ever, arise under federal 

patent law . . . .”) (emphasis added). Accepting Defendants’ invitation to carve out a broad exception for patent 

prosecution malpractice would conflict with the Supreme 

Court’s description of such exceptions as comprising a 

“slim category.” Id. at 1065; see also Empire 

HealthChoice, 547 U.S. at 699 (describing exceptions to 

this rule as a “special and small category”). The number 

of patent-related malpractice cases considered by the 

Federal Circuit demonstrates that such cases have not 

been rare. See, e.g., Byrne, 676 F.3d at 1037 (O’Malley, J., 

dissenting).

Defendants further attempt to distinguish Gunn by 

arguing that NeuroRepair’s patents were undergoing 

prosecution at the time of the litigation, and so any court 

decision with respect to the malpractice claim could have 

a real-world result and would not be backward-looking. 

However, as already explained, the outcome of this dispute is not likely to control numerous other cases. See

supra Part II.C.ii. In addition, the Gunn Court considered and rejected the argument that “state courts’ answers to hypothetical patent questions can sometimes 

have real-world,” forward-looking effects, such as where a 

state court’s interpretation of claim scope impacts a 

USPTO examiner’s later consideration of a continuation 

application related to the earlier-litigated patent. 133 S. 

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Ct. at 1067. In rejecting this argument, the Court expressed doubt that an examiner would be bound by a 

state court’s interpretation, and found in any event such 

effects would be “‘fact-bound and situation-specific’” and 

any forward-looking results would be limited to the parties and patents that had been before the state court. Id.

at 1068 (quoting Empire HealthChoice, 547 U.S. at 701). 

Similarly, it noted that “federal courts are of course not 

bound by state court case-within-a-case patent rulings.” 

Gunn, 133 S. Ct. at 1067. 

Addressing what would have happened had the alleged bad acts of Defendants not occurred requires a court 

to engage in precisely the sort of backward-looking, hypothetical analysis contemplated in Gunn. Exercise of 

federal jurisdiction is therefore improper.

CONCLUSION

For these reasons, this court 

VACATES AND REMANDS TO THE DISTRICT 

COURT WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REMAND THE 

CASE TO CALIFORNIA STATE COURT

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