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Parties Involved:
AngioScore, Inc.
Appellee
Eitan Konstantino
Appellant
QT Vascular Ltd.
Appellant
Quattro Vascular PTE Ltd.
Appellant
TriReme Medical, LLC
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

ANGIOSCORE, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC, QUATTRO VASCULAR 

PTE LTD., QT VASCULAR LTD., EITAN 

KONSTANTINO,

Defendants-Appellants

______________________ 

2016-1126, 2016-1142

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of California in No. 4:12-cv-03393-YGR, 

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

______________________ 

Decided: November 8, 2016

______________________ 

ROBERT PAUL FELDMAN, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & 

Sullivan, LLP, Redwood Shores, CA, argued for plaintiffappellee. Also represented by WILLIAM ADAMS, PETER J.

ARMENIO, CLELAND B. WELTON, II, New York, NY.

LISA SCHIAVO BLATT, Arnold & Porter LLP, Washington, DC, argued for defendants-appellants Trireme Medical, Quattro Vascular PTE LTD., QT Vascular LTD. Also 

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2 ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC

represented by DAVID A. CAINE; DAVID S. STEUER, STEVEN 

GUGGENHEIM, DYLAN JAMES LIDDIARD, CHERYL W. FOUNG, 

Wilson, Sonsisi, Goodrich & Rosati, PC, Palo Alto, CA.

ADRIAN MARY PRUETZ, Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs, 

Howard, Avchen & Shapiro LLP, Los Angeles, CA, argued 

for defendant-appellant Eitan Konstantino. Also represented by MIEKE K. MALMBERG, RICHARD W. BUCKNER. 

______________________ 

Before REYNA, PLAGER, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

HUGHES, Circuit Judge.

AngioScore, Inc. sued the defendant-appellants (TriReme Medical, LLC, Quattro Vascular PTE Ltd., QT 

Vascular Ltd., and Eitan Konstantino) for patent infringement, breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting, 

and unfair competition. After separate trials on the 

patent and state-law claims, the district court entered 

final judgment for Defendants on the patent claim, for 

AngioScore on the state-law claims, and denied Corporate 

Defendants’ (TriReme Medical, LLC, Quattro Vascular 

PTE Ltd., and QT Vascular Ltd.) request for attorneys’ 

fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Because we find that the 

district court improperly exercised supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims but did not err in denying 

attorneys’ fees, we reverse-in-part, affirm-in-part, vacatein-part, and remand with instructions to dismiss the 

state-law claims for lack of jurisdiction. 

I 

In March 2003, Eitan Konstantino co-founded AngioScore to develop and market a new angioplasty balloon 

catheter that he had co-invented, called AngioSculpt. 

Dr. Konstantino initially served as AngioScore’s president

and sat on its board of directors. As a condition of his 

employment, Dr. Konstantino and AngioScore entered 

into an assignment agreement, in which Dr. Konstantino 

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ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC 3

agreed to assign AngioScore his rights in any inventions 

that he conceived of or developed during his employment. 

In November 2005, the board of directors began gradually reducing Dr. Konstantino’s role at AngioScore, and 

on April 1, 2007, AngioScore terminated 

Dr. Konstantino’s employment, and, thereby, terminated 

the assignment agreement. Dr. Konstantino remained on 

AngioScore’s board as an outside board member charged 

with representing certain minority investors. 

While AngioScore was reducing his role, 

Dr. Konstantino increased his involvement with TriReme 

Medical, LLC, a separate company that he had cofounded. TriReme initially focused on developing endovascular bifurcation stents and delivery systems for 

bifurcation stents, which differs from the technology used 

in angioplasty balloons, e.g., AngioScore’s AngioSculpt 

product. But, in the fall of 2009, Dr. Konstantino and 

Tanhum Feld conceived of a new angioplasty balloon 

catheter which they named Chocolate. On October 9, 

2009, Dr. Konstantino filed a provisional patent application for Chocolate, naming himself and Mr. Feld as coinventors. Thereafter, Dr. Konstantino sought funding 

from outside investors to bring the device to market while 

Mr. Feld worked on the design and development of the 

device. 

On February 3, 2010, Dr. Konstantino informed Tom 

Trotter, AngioScore’s CEO, that TriReme would be “moving into” the specialty balloon market, but did not specifically discuss Chocolate. J.A. 51342. The next day, 

Mr. Trotter demanded that Dr. Konstantino resign from 

AngioScore’s board because he felt that “the development 

or marketing of an angioplasty device of any kind for the 

treatment of peripheral artery disease which could compete with AngioScore has created a serious conflict of 

interest for [Dr. Konstantino] as a Board Member of 

AngioScore.” J.A. 80351. Dr. Konstantino attempted to 

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4 ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC

clarify that TriReme had “not made any decision” regarding the specialty balloon market, and that it “may never 

happen, depending on the investors coming to the table . . . .” J.A. 80369. Ultimately, Dr. Konstantino resigned from AngioScore’s board, effective February 5, 

2010. 

Dr. Konstantino and Mr. Feld assigned their rights in 

Chocolate to TriReme’s corporate affiliate, Quattro Vascular PTE Ltd., on June 1, 2010. A non-provisional patent 

application for Chocolate was filed in March 2011, and 

Defendants began selling it in the United States in December 2011. 

On June 29, 2012, AngioScore sued Defendants for infringing United States Patent No. 7,691,119 (the ’119 

patent) by making and selling Chocolate. AngioScore 

later added state-law claims for breach of fiduciary duty, 

aiding and abetting, and unfair competition. AngioScore 

asserted that Dr. Konstantino violated Delaware’s corporate opportunity doctrine by “fail[ing] to disclose and offer 

to AngioScore the business opportunity relating to the 

Chocolate device.” J.A. 2541. Further, AngioScore contended that the Corporate Defendants aided and abetted 

Dr. Konstantino’s alleged breach of fiduciary duty, which 

constituted unfair competition. J.A. 2542–43. 

Defendants moved to dismiss the state-law claims for 

lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In denying the motion 

to dismiss, the district court concluded that the exercise of 

jurisdiction was proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1367 because 

“the core of this case concerns the Chocolate device,” as 

both the federal and state-law claims “turn on proof 

concerning exactly what [] Chocolate is, how it was developed, and its import relative to AngioScore both in terms 

of lost profits if found to be infringing, or its value as a 

potential corporate opportunity.” J.A. 37. 

Following a bench trial on the state-law claims, the 

district court issued Findings of Fact and Conclusions of 

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ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC 5

Law, ruling in favor of AngioScore. The district court 

found that Chocolate was a corporate opportunity and 

Dr. Konstantino breached his fiduciary duty by failing to 

offer it to AngioScore. The district court awarded AngioScore $20,034,000 in lost profits. A separate trial 

was held on AngioScore’s federal patent infringement 

claim. The jury found that Chocolate did not infringe any 

asserted claim of the ’119 patent and that all of AngioScore’s asserted claims were invalid. The district court 

subsequently denied Corporate Defendants’ request for 

attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. 

Defendants appeal the district court’s exercise of jurisdiction over the state-law claims and the denial of 

attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1). 

II

The threshold question here is whether the district 

court properly exercised jurisdiction over the state-law 

claims. We review de novo a district court’s exercise of 

supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims under 28 

U.S.C. § 1367(a). Voda v. Cordis Corp., 476 F.3d 887, 892 

(Fed. Cir. 2007).

This court follows the “‘fundamental precept that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction,’ empowered 

to act only within the bounds of Article III of the United 

States Constitution.” Highway Equip. Co. v. FECO, Ltd., 

469 F.3d 1027, 1032 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (quoting Owen 

Equip. & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 374 

(1978)). If diversity jurisdiction is lacking and the case 

involves state-law claims that are not independently 

subject to federal jurisdiction, a district court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over those state-law claims

only if they “are so related to claims in the action within 

such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same 

case or controversy under Article III of the United States 

Constitution.” 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a); see also Highway 

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6 ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC

Equip. Co., 469 F.3d at 1038. “For this relatedness requirement to be satisfied, ‘[t]he state and federal claims 

must derive from a common nucleus of operative fact’

such that they would ordinarily be expected to be tried in 

one proceeding.” Highway Equip. Co., 469 F.3d at 1038 

(quoting United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 

715, 725 (1966)). The test for the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction is not to be “unnecessarily grudging” 

and must consider “judicial economy, convenience, and 

fairness to litigants.” Id. at 725–26. The presence of a 

common nucleus of operative fact must always be present, 

however. 

Generally, claims arise out of a common nucleus of 

operative fact when they “involve the same witnesses, 

presentation of the same evidence, and determination of 

the same, or very similar, facts.” Palmer v. Hosp. Auth. of 

Randolph Cty., 22 F.3d 1559, 1563–64 (11th Cir. 1994); 

see also Lyndonville Sav. Bank & Trust Co. v. Lussier, 211 

F.3d 697, 704 (2d Cir. 2000) (a sufficient relationship will 

be found if “the facts underlying the federal and state 

claims substantially overlap[] . . . or where presentation of 

the federal claim necessarily b[rings] the facts underlying 

the state claim before the court”). However, state-law 

claims that only “relate generally” to federal claims 

through a broader dispute and do not share any operative 

facts are insufficient for supplemental jurisdiction. Chelsea Condo. Unit Owners Ass’n v. 1815 A St., Condo. Grp., 

LLC, 468 F. Supp. 2d 136, 141 (D.D.C. 2007). 

Applying the Supreme Court’s test in Gibbs, we find 

here that no common nucleus of operative fact exists. The 

patent infringement claim relates generally to whether 

the Chocolate device satisfies the ’119 patent’s claim 

limitations, see Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 

517 U.S. 370, 374 (1996) (“Victory in an infringement suit 

requires a finding that the patent claim covers the alleged 

infringer’s product or process, which in turn necessitates 

a determination of what the words in the claim mean.”) 

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ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC 7

(internal quotations and citations omitted), while the 

state-law claims relate solely to whether the Chocolate 

device was a “corporate opportunity,” which requires 

evidence that: (1) the opportunity is within the corporation’s line of business; (2) the corporation has an interest 

or expectancy in the opportunity; (3) the corporation is 

financially able to exploit the opportunity; and (4) by 

taking the opportunity for his own, the corporate fiduciary 

is placed in a position inimical to his duties to the corporation, Broz v. Cellular Info. Sys., Inc., 673 A.2d 148, 154–

55 (Del. 1996). 

Although the district court was required to have a 

general understanding of how Chocolate operated to 

determine if Chocolate fell within AngioScore’s line of 

business, see J.A. 43–44 (“AngioSculpt and Chocolate, 

TriReme’s device, are both angioplasty balloon catheters 

used to open occluded or narrowed blood vessels at lesion 

sites by inflating to compress plaque deposits against the 

vessel wall and then deflating for removal from the patient’s body.”), this does not create a “common nucleus of 

operative fact” because it is simply general “background” 

information. See Burgess v. Omar, 345 F. Supp. 2d 369, 

370–72 (S.D.N.Y. 2004); Trilithic, Inc. v. Wavetek U.S. 

Inc., 6 F. Supp. 2d 803, 806 (S.D. Ind. 1998). Additionally, 

the fact that the same experts calculated the patent 

damages and opined on damages relating to the state-law 

claims is not an “operative fact” sufficient to confer jurisdiction. 

While we recognize that there is some judicial economy to allow a judgment that has been fully adjudicated to 

stand, judicial economy is not Gibbs’s only concern. 

Because the state-law claims here only generally relate to 

the federal patent claim, a “common nucleus of operative 

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8 ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC

fact” does not exist.1 Accordingly, we find that the district 

court erred in exercising supplemental jurisdiction over 

the state-law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a). 

III

Corporate Defendants also appeal the district court’s 

denial of attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Under 

§ 285, a “court in exceptional cases may award reasonable 

attorney fees to the prevailing party.” An “exceptional 

case” is “one that stands out from others with respect to 

the substantive strength of a party’s litigating position 

(considering both the governing law and the facts of the 

case) or the unreasonable manner in which the case was 

litigated.” Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, 

Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1749, 1756 (2014). On appeal, we review 

the district court’s exceptional case determination under 

§ 285 for an abuse of discretion. SFA Sys., LLC v. 

Newegg Inc., 793 F.3d 1344, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2015). 

The district court did not find the patent claim “exceptionally weak,” in part because it survived summary 

judgment. J.A. 181. However, Defendants argue that 

they were entitled to summary judgment because claim 

vitiation defeated the application of the doctrine of equivalents. They assert, therefore, that because the district 

court’s denial of summary judgment was premised on an 

incorrect view of the doctrine of equivalents, reversal of 

the denial of attorneys’ fees is proper since “legal error 

invaded the district court’s evaluation of whether Angi1 Because there is no common nucleus of operative 

fact between the state-law claims and the federal claim, 

the district court also lacks jurisdiction to hear the statelaw unfair competition claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1338(b). 

See 13D Charles Alan Wright, et al., FEDERAL PRACTICE 

AND PROCEDURE § 3582 (3d ed. 2015).

 

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ANGIOSCORE, INC. v. TRIREME MEDICAL, LLC 9

oScore’s patent infringement claim was ‘exceptionally 

meritless.’” Pet. Br. at 59. 

However, Corporate Defendants did not argue claim 

vitiation in their initial motion for summary judgment. 

Although Corporate Defendants sought leave to file a 

second motion for summary judgment to make this argument, the district court denied the request because it 

violated its Standing Order in Civil Cases. J.A. 3353.1. 

The district court’s failure to grant summary judgment on 

an argument that was never properly presented does not 

constitute a legal error. Therefore, we find that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in denying 

attorneys’ fees under § 285. 

IV 

For these reasons, we find that the district court improperly exercised supplemental jurisdiction over the 

state-law claims, but did not err in denying attorneys’ 

fees. Therefore, we reverse-in-part, affirm-in-part, vacate-in-part, and remand with instructions to dismiss the 

state-law claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 

REVERSED-IN-PART, AFFIRMED-IN-PART, 

VACATED-IN-PART, AND REMANDED

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