NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

LARRY GOLDEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

APPLE INC., SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS USA, LG 

ELECTRONICS USA, INC., QUALCOMM 

INCORPORATED, MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC., 

PANASONIC CORPORATION, AT&T INC., 

VERIZON CORPORATION SERVICE GROUP, 

SPRINT CORPORATION, T-MOBILE USA, INC., 

FORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, FAIRWAY 

FORD LINCOLN OF GREENVILLE, GENERAL 

MOTORS COMPANY, KEVIN WHITAKER 

CHEVROLET, FCA US LLC, BIG O DODGE 

CHRYSLER JEEP RAM,

Defendants

______________________ 

2022-1229

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

District of South Carolina in No. 6:20-cv-04353-JD, Judge 

Joseph Dawson, III.

-------------------------------------------------

LARRY GOLDEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant

Case: 22-1229 Document: 16 Page: 1 Filed: 09/08/2022
2 GOLDEN v. APPLE INC. 

v.

GOOGLE LLC,

Defendant

______________________ 

2022-1267

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

District of South Carolina in No. 6:21-cv-00244-JD, Judge 

Joseph Dawson, III.

______________________ 

Decided: September 8, 2022

______________________ 

LARRY GOLDEN, Greenville, SC, pro se. 

 ______________________ 

Before DYK, TARANTO, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM

Larry Golden appeals two orders of the United States 

District Court for the District of South Carolina (“district 

court”) dismissing his patent infringement claims against 

various defendants. We affirm the dismissal in Case

No. 22-1229 but vacate the dismissal in Case No. 22-1267 

and remand for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. 

BACKGROUND

Mr. Golden owns a family of patents concerning a system for locking, unlocking, or disabling a lock upon the 

Case: 22-1229 Document: 16 Page: 2 Filed: 09/08/2022
GOLDEN v. APPLE INC. 3

detection of chemical, radiological, and biological hazards.1 

In 2019, he sued sixteen defendants in the district court, 

alleging patent infringement by their development and 

manufacturing of certain devices. The district court dismissed the suit without prejudice, and this court affirmed 

the dismissal “on the ground of frivolousness” because Mr. 

Golden’s complaint “offer[ed] only vague generalities and 

block quotes of statutes, cases and treatises, but nowhere 

point[ed] us to any nonfrivolous allegations of infringement 

of any claim by any actual product made, used, or sold by 

any defendant.” Golden v. Apple Inc., 819 F. App’x 930, 931 

(Fed. Cir. 2020).

On January 5, 2021, in Case No. 22-1229, Mr. Golden 

again sued the same sixteen defendants from the 2019 case 

for patent infringement (“the Apple case”). He initially 

filed the same over-300-page complaint held to be frivolous 

in the 2019 case. After the magistrate judge imposed a 35 

page limit on the complaint, Mr. Golden filed a shortened 

complaint complying with the restriction. On January 26, 

2021, in Case No. 22-1267, Mr. Golden separately sued 

Google LLC for patent infringement (“the Google case”). 

The magistrate judge reviewed the complaints in both 

cases and recommended summary dismissal with prejudice 

without issuance of service of process or leave to amend 

and monetary sanctions for the filing of frivolous litigation. 

In both cases, the district court adopted the magistrate 

judge’s recommendations in part. In the Apple case, the 

district court dismissed the complaint as frivolous without 

the issuance of service of process but declined to dismiss 

with prejudice. Additionally, the district court lifted the 

page restriction for an amended complaint. In the Google 

case, the district court dismissed the complaint with 

1 The patents at issue in these cases are U.S. Patent 

Nos. 7,385,497; 9,096,189; 9,589,439; 10,163,287 and Reissue Patent Nos. RE43,891 and RE43,990.

Case: 22-1229 Document: 16 Page: 3 Filed: 09/08/2022
4 GOLDEN v. APPLE INC. 

prejudice and without the issuance of service of process. 

Mr. Golden appeals the district court decisions in both 

cases. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1). 

On appeal, Mr. Golden has filed briefs, while the defendants have not filed responsive briefs.

DISCUSSION

Under the pleading standards set forth in Bell Atlantic 

Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), a court must dismiss a complaint 

if it fails to allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief 

that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. 

This standard “requires more than labels and conclusions, 

and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. at 555 (citation omitted). A plaintiff 

must allege facts that give rise to “more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Iqbal, 556 

U.S. at 678 (citation omitted). In the patent context, this 

court has explained that a plaintiff need not “plead facts 

establishing that each element of an asserted claim is met,”

In re Bill of Lading Transmission and Processing Sys. Pat. 

Litig., 681 F.3d 1323, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (citing McZeal 

v. Sprint Nextel Corp., 501 F.3d 1354, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 

2007)), but must plead “‘enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal’ that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. at 1341 

(alteration in original) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). 

We review the district court’s dismissal of the complaint de 

novo. Anand v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, 754 F.3d 195, 

198 (4th Cir. 2014).

In the Apple case, the district court dismissed the docketed complaint as frivolous after finding that Mr. Golden 

“failed to include factual allegations beyond the identities 

of the Defendants, reference to the alleged infringing devices, and the alleged infringed-upon patents.” Dist. Ct. 

Op. at 4–5. We agree with the district court: the docketed 

complaint is nothing more than a list of patent claims and

Case: 22-1229 Document: 16 Page: 4 Filed: 09/08/2022
GOLDEN v. APPLE INC. 5

accused products manufactured by each defendant for each 

asserted patent. Mr. Golden contends that his original

complaint contained sufficient factual allegations to support his claims. However, he concedes that the rejected 

original complaint was identical to the one that this court 

deemed frivolous in the 2019 case. His effort to relitigate 

the sufficiency of the original complaint is precluded under 

the doctrine of res judicata. See Arizona v. California, 530 

U.S. 392, 412 (2000) (“[I]f a court is on notice that it has 

previously decided the issue presented, the court may dismiss the action sua sponte, even though [a preclusion] defense has not been raised.”). Mr. Golden does not argue 

that the docketed complaint contains factual allegations 

beyond those contained in his original complaint or that 

the allegations in the docketed complaint do anything beyond listing the alleged infringed-upon patent claims and 

the alleged infringing devices. This is plainly insufficient. 

We see no error in the district court’s without prejudice dismissal of the Apple case.

In the Google case, the district court again concluded 

that Mr. Golden’s complaint was frivolous. Here, however,

Mr. Golden’s complaint includes a detailed claim chart 

mapping features of an accused product, the Google Pixel 5 

Smartphone, to independent claims from U.S. Patent Nos. 

10,163,287, 9,589,439, and 9,069,189. The district court

discounted this claim chart because it “contains the exact 

same language as the claim charts previously rejected by 

the Federal Circuit [in the 2019 case], although Google 

Pixel 5 Smartphone appears in the far left column instead 

of Apple.” Dist. Ct. Op. at 4. But to the extent that the 

chart includes the “exact same language” as previously rejected charts, it is simply the language of the independent 

claims being mapped to. The key column describing the

infringing nature of the accused products is not the same

as the complaint held frivolous in the 2019 case. It attempts—whether successfully or not—to map claim 

Case: 22-1229 Document: 16 Page: 5 Filed: 09/08/2022
6 GOLDEN v. APPLE INC. 

limitations to infringing product features, and it does so in

a relatively straightforward manner.

We conclude that the district court’s decision in the 

Google case is not correct with respect to at least the three 

claims mapped out in the claim chart. Mr. Golden has 

made efforts to identify exactly how the accused products 

meet the limitations of his claims in this chart. On remand, 

the district court should allow the complaint to be filed and 

request service of process. Our decision does not preclude 

subsequent motions to dismiss by the defendant for failure 

to state a claim or for summary judgment. We express no 

opinion as to the adequacy of the complaint or claim chart

except that it is not facially frivolous.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s 

dismissal in Case No. 22-1229, vacate the dismissal in 

Case No. 22-1267, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

CASE NO. 22-1229 AFFIRMED

CASE NO. 22-1267 VACATED AND REMANDED

COSTS

No costs.

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