Source: http://www.717madisonplace.com/?paged=68
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:52:52+00:00

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Judge Reyna heard his first oral argument at the Federal Circuit today. While he previously took part in the Therasense en banc decision, that case was argued before he was sworn in to the bench.
Chief Judge Rader had these welcoming remarks: [Listen]. Judge Reyna’s first case was fittingly an appeal from the Court of International Trade, PS Chez Sidney v. USITC. The subject matter appeared to deal with crawfish.
An advocate appearing before the court last summer must have been looking a little bit peaked during oral argument. Judge Bryson inquired if he could ask a question before counsel expired: [Listen].
A general multi-purpose processor-based system for authorizing a desired transaction to be con-ducted utilizing a particular provider, wherein in-formation with respect to said desired transaction as conducted by each of a plurality of providers is presented for selection of said particular provider, said system comprising: . . .
means for presenting each of said determined values for comparison . . . .
means for accepting information associated with said transaction parameters from a general purpose computer program operating on said general multi-purpose processor-based system.
The plaintiff-appellant asserted that the disclosure in the specification of various parameters necessary for calculating postage was sufficient to make the means plus function claim definite, especially given the simple nature of the calculation. The defendant-appellee countered that no structure or algorithm for computing postage had been disclosed and that the means plus function claim was necessarily indefinite.
A means plus function claim only covers structure and material disclosed in the specification and its equivalents, so as to avoid pure functional claiming. But, there is a spectrum to the law of indefiniteness between cases like Wellman, Inc. v. Eastman Chemical Co., 2010-1249 (Fed. Cir. April 29, 2011)* which notes that one need not disclose details in the specification that are well known to one of ordinary skill in the art in order to satisfy definiteness requirement under 35 USC §112, ¶2 and cases like In re Katz Litigation, 2009-1450 (Fed. Cir. March 2, 2011) which notes that a means plus function clause is indefinite if there is no or insufficient structure in the specification corresponding to the claimed means. Judge Bryson explored this spectrum with the parties during the oral argument of Stamps.com questioning whether there was a way to articulate a standard for indefiniteness when the claimed means plus function element refers to an extremely simple function, such as adding two numbers. You can listen to his exchange with the plaintiff-appellant and defendant-appellee [here] and [here], respectively.
Here, the calculation of shipping value appears to involve a complex interaction of zone variables, weight variables, and class variables. There is no disclosure of the actual algorithms necessary to calculate the transaction value, nor is there any disclosure that these algorithms involve only simple arithmetic. The failure to provide such an algorithm in the specification renders claim 23 of the ’568 patent invalid as indefinite.
In holding the claims indefinite, the district court focused on the lack of specific moisture conditions for DSC testing, reasoning that the absence of intrinsic guidance would prevent a person of ordinary skill from understanding the bounds of the claims. Wellman, 689 F. Supp. 2d at 719-20. However, an inventor need not explain every detail because a patent is read by those of skill in the art. Koito Mfg. Co. v. Turn-Key-Tech, LLC, 381 F.3d 1142, 1156 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing In re Howarth, 654 F.2d 103, 105 (CCPA 1981)). Well known industry standards need not be repeated in a patent. See id. In this case, the record shows that a person of ordinary skill in the art in this field would follow standard industry guidance for conditioning plastics for DSC. Specifically, the record shows that (1) the 1997 International Standard for Differential Scanning Calorimetry of Plastics (“ISO 11357-1) (the “1997 ISO”) provides a person of skill in the art with an objective standard for moisture conditioning; (2) a person of skill in the art would have been aware of the 1997 ISO prior to the filing of its patent applications; and (3) a person of skill in the art would have interpreted the Wellman patents in view of the 1997 ISO.
The starting point under § 112 is that a duty is imposed which must be met by an applicant. In exchange for the patent, he must enable others to practice his invention. An inventor need not, however, explain every detail since he is speaking to those skilled in the art. What is conventional knowledge will be read into the disclosure. Accordingly, an applicant’s duty to tell all that is necessary to make or use varies greatly depending upon the art to which the invention pertains.
Each fall the Federal Circuit usually visits a city across the country to hold session and hear oral arguments. You might recall that last fall the court sat in Atlanta. I suspect that Chief Judge Rader will announce in his State of the Court address next week where the court will be sitting this fall. As for the fall of 2012, I understand that the court will be sitting in Denver/Boulder.
If you are interested in hosting the court in your city some year, you might want to contact some of the organizers of Colorado’s invitation effort in order to better understand the invitation process. You could contact Mike Drapkin, an adjunct professor with the University of Colorado Law School and a patent attorney at Holland and Hart, LLP or John Posthumus, Chair of the IP Section of the Colorado Bar Association and a patent attorney at Sheridan Ross, P.C.
In its early years, the court visited more than one city each year. You can review the list here to see the last time that the court held an out of Washington, D.C. session in your city: [List].
The 717 Madison Place blog is celebrating its two-year anniversary today. Thanks for tuning in! Looking back over the last two years, I think my favorite sound bite comes from the very first post. If you haven’t listened to that one, here it is again: [“This is a brother-in-law case, your Honor”]. That sound bite comes from Crater Corp. v. Lucent Technologies.
This past May the Fourth Circuit updated its policy in regard to oral argument recordings. Like many of its sister circuits, oral argument recordings from the Fourth Circuit are now available for download from its web site. Surprisingly, a few circuit courts have not yet made oral argument recordings available for download — trailing even the Supreme Court in facilitating public access.
Litigation concerning the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” that was enacted last year has now made its way to three appellate courts. The Fourth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits have all heard oral arguments with the Eleventh Circuit holding oral argument today.
You can listen to the oral argument in the Eleventh Circuit case (State of Florida, et al., v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Services, et al.) here: [Listen].
You can listen to the June 1st oral argument in the Sixth Circuit here: [Opening Remarks by Court], [Argument on Government\’s Motion to Dismiss], and [Argument on the Merits].
You can listen to the two cases argued on May 10th to the Fourth Circuit here: [Liberty University, Inc. v. Timothy Geithner ] and [Commonwealth of Virginia v. Kathleen Sebelius ].
Notably, Paul Clement, who argued on behalf of the NFL in the NFL lockout case last Friday, argued on behalf of the states in today’s Eleventh Circuit oral argument.

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