Source: http://www.filewrapper.com/index.cfm/Federal-Circuit-cases
Timestamp: 2014-09-30 23:54:07
Document Index: 191355313

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 112', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 102', '§ 102']

Filewrapper® | A patent, trademark, and copyright law blog by MVS : Federal Circuit cases
MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Legitimate Advocacy and Genuine Misrepresentation of Material Facts
Posted At : August 25, 2014 2:56 PM | Posted By : Blog Staff
Obviousness,Federal Circuit cases,Inequitable conduct,Patents,USPTO
The Federal Circuit has issued a decision in Apotex Inc. v. UCB, Inc., upholding a district court's finding that Apotex's U.S. Patent No. 6,767,556 ("the '556 patent") is unenforceable due to inequitable conduct. Dr. Sherman, founder and chairman of Apotex, wrote the '556 patent application and is its sole inventor. The '556 is based on Canadian application filed on April 5, 2000. The ’556 patent is generally directed to a process for manufacturing tablets of moexipril tablets—an angiotensin-converting enzyme (“ACE”) inhibitor used to treat hypertension. The ’556 patent discloses a process of making moexipril tablets consisting mostly of moexipril magnesium obtained by reacting moexipril or its acid addition salts with an alkaline magnesium compound to improve stability and prevent degradation of the normally instable moexipril hydrochloride. Two existing drugs— Univasc and Uniretic—were both cited as prior art in the prosecution of the '556 patent, and were also asserted to infringe the '556 patent after issuance. During prosecution, Dr. Sherman, through his patent attorney, asserted that the prior drugs did not render the invention of the '556 patent obvious because the process for making them simply combined components, rather than reacting them. However, evidence presented at trial indicated that Dr. Sherman suspected that the existing drugs were made by the process recited in his application at the time the application was filed, and later conducted experiments to confirm that the components in those existing drugs were reacted, rather than simply combined as he represented to the PTO. The court also found that Dr. Sherman has misled or failed to inform a declarant, Dr. Lipp, regarding the true nature of the existing drugs in relation to the claimed invention, resulting in a declaration by Dr. Lipp that perpetuated Dr. Sherman's mischaracterizations of those existing drugs. In addition, the court determined that Dr. Sherman withheld relevant prior art from the PTO. The district court held the combined misrepresentations and withholdings were material to the prosecution of the '556 patent, and that Dr. Sherman intended to deceive the PTO based on his overall pattern of misconduct, and therefore the '556 patent was unenforceable due to inequitable misconduct. On appeal, Dr. Sherman argued that the conduct before the PTO was merely advocating a particular interpretation of the prior art. However, the Federal Circuit determined that his statements were not mere advocacy for a preferred interpretation; his statements were factual in nature and contrary to the true information he had in his possession. The court clarified that there is no duty to disclose suspicions or beliefs regarding the prior art, and that there is nothing wrong with advocating, in good faith, a reasonable interpretation of the teachings of the prior art. However, affirmatively and knowingly misrepresenting material facts regarding the prior art goes beyond failing to disclose a personal belief or alternative interpretations of the prior art, and enters the realm of inequitable conduct, which may result in an unenforceable patent. The full opinion is available here. Comments (0) | Print | Send | del.icio.us
| Linking Blogs | 631 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Critical Versus Optional, but Desireable Claim Elements
Posted At : August 18, 2014 10:01 AM | Posted By : Blog Staff
Written description,Patents,Federal Circuit cases,Reexamination,USPTO
On August 6, 2014, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in ScriptPro, LLC v. Innovation Associates, Inc. In 2006, the Petitioner ScriptPro, LLC sued Innovation Associates, Inc. for infringement of claims 1, 2, 4, and 8 of U.S. Patent No. 6,910,601 ("the '601 patent"). The '601 patent describes a "collating unit" that uses sensors to automatically dispense and organize prescriptions according to individual patients. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Innovation Associates filed an Inter Partes Reexamination with the USPTO, and the district court stayed the proceedings pending the result of the re-exam. In January of 2011, the USPTO concluded its reexamination of the claims of the '601 patent, confirming claims 1, 2, 4, and 8. The district court resumed proceedings and Innovation Associates moved for summary judgment, arguing that the claims were invalid under section 112 on the grounds that the patent's specification did not describe the subject matter of the asserted claims. The claims at issue did not require the use of sensors. However, the district court agreed with Innovation Associates that the specification of the '601 patent implied that the use of "sensors" is critical to the functionality of the machine. Specifically, the court held, "no reasonable jury could find that the inventors were in possession of a collating unit that operated without sensors." Accordingly, the district court granted Innovation Associate's motion for summary judgment of invalidity for failure to satisfy the written description requirements of § 112. On appeal, the Federal Circuit reviewed de novo the language of the specification and—after pointing to several places in the specification suggesting the sensor may or may not be used—found that the wording of the specifications made the sensors an "optional, though desirable," feature of the invention. The Court also pointed to the original claims as filed and noted "[w]hen a specification is ambiguous about which of several features are stand-alone inventions, the original claims can help resolve the ambiguity, though even original claims may be insufficient as descriptions or be insufficiently supported by the rest of the specification." The Federal Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment holding that, ScriptPro could establish that a person of skill in the art would be able to tell from description of the specification that "the inventor[s] actually invented the invention claimed." The Court concluded that, although the machine would be more efficient with the sensors, it could be fully functional without them and, therefore, the written description was sufficient. Comments (0) | Print | Send | del.icio.us
| Linking Blogs | 597 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Federal Circuit Invalidates Patent Claims As Non-Patentable Subject Matter
Posted At : August 8, 2014 9:36 AM | Posted By : Blog Staff
Federal Circuit cases,Patents,Patentable subject matter
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's recent decision in Digitech Image Technologies v. Electronics for Imaging, Inc., upheld a decision that patent claims directed to a collection of numerical data that lacks a physical component or manifestation as well as an abstract idea of organizing data through mathematical correlations are invalid. The plaintiff, Digitech Image Technologies, filed infringement suits against 32 defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, asserting claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,128,415 ("the '415 patent"). The '415 patent disclosed an "improved device profile" that describes spatial and color properties of a device within a digital image processing system and "includes both chromatic characteristic information and spatial characteristic information." The district court concluded that the "device profile" claims were directed to a collection of numerical data that lacks a physical component or physical manifestation and that a "device profile" is nothing more than information, thus not falling into one of the categories of eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C § 101. Furthermore, the district court concluded that the asserted method claims for generating a device profile encompass the abstract idea of organizing data through mathematical correlations were also ineligible under § 101.On appeal, Digitech asserted that the district court erred in its findings that both the "device profile" and method claims were invalid. With regard to the "device profile" claims, the Court of Appeals stated that for under § 101, for all categories except process claims, the eligible subject matter must exist in some physical or tangible form. Here the "device profile" is comprised of two sets of data that describe a device dependent transformation—one set of data for color information and the other set of data for spatial information. Though Digitech argued that the "device profile" is hardware or software within a digital image processing system, the Court of Appeals concluded that the claims' only description of the device profile relates to the two sets of data and that data in its non-physical form simply does not fall under § 101. Additionally, the Federal Circuit concluded that the '415 patent's method claims were drawn to an abstract idea because it describes a process of organizing information through mathematical correlations and is not tied to a specific structure or machine. The Court reasoned that without additional limitations, the employment of a mathematical algorithm to manipulate existing information in order to generate additional information is not eligible for patent protection. Specifically, the claim stated a process of combining two data sets into the "device profile" and was "so abstract and sweeping" as to cover any and all uses of a "device profile." The full opinion is available here: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/13-1600.Opinion.7-9-2014.1.PDF
| Linking Blogs | 771 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: USPTO Patent Invalidation Precludes Judicial Equitable Remedies and Sanctions
Posted At : July 31, 2014 11:30 AM | Posted By : Blog Staff
Patents,Civil procedure,Federal Circuit cases,Injunctions,Reexamination
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a decision in ePlus, Inc. v. Lawson. ePlus sued Lawson asserting infringement of two patents—U.S. Patent Nos. 6,023,683 ("the '683 patent") and 6,505,172 ("the '172 patent"). At trial, the district court held two of ePlus's asserted system claims and three of ePlus's asserted method claims not invalid, and the jury found those same claims infringed by Lawson. The district court entered an injunction against Lawson, precluding Lawson from "directly or indirectly making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States or importing into the United States any of the [adjudged infringing] product configurations and/or installation, implementation, design, configuration, consulting, upgrade, maintenance and support and training and other related and associated services and any colorable variations thereof (the “Infringing Products and Services”)." Lawson appealed, and the Federal Circuit reversed in part, holding the system claims invalid and two of three method claims not infringed. The Federal Circuit remanded the case to district court to modify the injunction accordingly. On remand the district court modified the injunction so that it only applied to infringement of claim 26 of the '683 patent—the sole remaining method claim. Further, the district court found Lawson in civil contempt for violating the injunction. Lawson appealed both the injunction and the contempt order. While the appeal was pended, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") completed a reexamination of the '683 patent and determined that the sole remaining claim from the litigation—method claim 26—was invalid and cancelled. In a separate appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed the USPTO's invalidity determination. Thus, the present appeal presented two questions: (1) whether the district court’s modified injunction against Lawson should be set aside in light of the PTO's cancellation of the patent claim on which it was based; and (2) whether the civil contempt sanctions should be set aside. The Federal Circuit held there was no sufficient legal basis to maintain the injunction and that it must be set aside. In support of this holding, the Federal Circuit noted, "It is well established that an injunction must be set aside when the legal basis for it has ceased to exist. . . . Our court has applied these principles to an injunction barring infringement of patents later found to be invalid." Because the sole remaining claim upon which the injunction was based had been invalidated—by the PTO; affirmed by the Federal Circuit—there was no legal basis for maintaining the injunction. The Federal Circuit also held that the civil contempt sanctions should be set aside. This was, in part, due to the fact that the injunction was not final and because it was a civil contempt order that was meant to compensate the ePlus for injury suffered as a result of the Lawson's infringing activity. However, as the only remaining claim upon which the injunction was based was found invalid, the Federal Circuit concluded that "the compensatory award for the violation of the injunction must be set aside in light of the cancellation of claim 26." The full opinion is available here. Comments (0) | Print | Send | del.icio.us
| Linking Blogs | 890 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Federal Circuit Weighs in on Stays for Post-Grant Review
Posted At : July 24, 2014 2:06 PM | Posted By : Blog Staff
America Inventors Act,Civil procedure,Federal Circuit cases,PTAB,Post-grant proceedings,Patents
The Federal Circuit has issued an opinion in VirtualAgility Inc. v. Salesforce.com, Inc., providing clarification regarding how court should properly determine whether to stay litigation during later-requested post-grant PTO proceedings. Under the America Invents Act, a district court is permitted, but not required, to grant such a stay. The statute also provides a list of four factors that the district court is to consider when deciding whether to grant a stay of litigation: (A) whether a stay, or the denial thereof, will simplify the issues in question and streamline the trial; (B) whether discovery is complete and whether a trial date has been set; (C) whether a stay, or the denial thereof, would unduly prejudice the nonmoving party or present a clear tactical advantage for the moving party; and (D) whether a stay, or the denial thereof, will reduce the burden of litigation on the parties and on the court. In January 2013 VirtualAgility Inc. ("VA") sued Salesforce.com, Inc. and a group of other businesses for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 8,095,413. Salesforce then filed a petition with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for a post-grant review of the patent under the Transitional Program for Covered Business Method Patents (CBM Program), asserting that all of the claims were patent-ineligible. In May of 2013, Salesforce and the other defendants filed a motion to stay district court proceedings in accordance with AIA Section 18(b)(1). In denying the motion, the District Court took into account the four factors provided by statute. The District Court conducted its own review of the file history, and determined that the PTAB would not likely cancel some or all of the claims, despite the he PTAB’s determination that the claims of the ’413 patent are more likely than not invalid. The district court therefore determined that the first factor, simplification of the issues, was either neutral or slightly against a stay. The district court also determined that the fourth factor, burden of litigation, had substantial overlap with the first and would only slightly favor a stay. The court decided the second factor favored a stay because it was early on in the litigation, and the third factor weighed against a stay because VirtualAgility would suffer from lost market share and consumer goodwill, in addition to the fact that "VA would be unduly prejudiced 'because certain witnesses are of an advanced age.'" The Defendants appealed the denial of the motion to stay to the Federal Circuit, which reversed the district court and concluded that the balance of the factors favored a stay pending the outcome of the CBM review. The court held that the district court's review the PTAB's determination that the claims of the ’413 patent are more likely than not invalid was an error as a matter of law because under the statutory scheme district courts have no role in reviewing the PTAB’s determinations regarding the patentability of claims that are subject to CBM proceedings. The Federal Circuit agreed with the district court's determination that the second factor weighed in favor of a stay, but disagreed with the district court's determination that the third factor weighed heavily against a stay. In concluding that the undue prejudice factor weighed only slightly against a stay, the Federal Circuit held that the district court erred in failing to take into account the fact that VA did not move for a preliminary injunction, and that if VA needed injunctive relief as soon as possible it would have pursued a preliminary injunction, or filed suit earlier. Ultimately, with three factors heavily favoring a stay and one slightly against a stay, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed district court and remanded the case with instructions to grant the motion to stay the litigation pending CBM review at the PTO. The full opinion is available here.
| Linking Blogs | 1052 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: PTO Interference Decisions do not Preclude Invalidity Defenses in Court
| Linking Blogs | 926 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Federal Circuit Holds Common Sense Cannot Establish Presence of an Element
Posted At : June 13, 2014 3:40 PM | Posted By : Blog Staff
Obviousness,Federal Circuit cases,Reexamination,Patents
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in K/S HIMPP v. Hear-Wear Technologies presents an interesting development in the law of obviousness. In affirming a finding of non-obviousness by the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences ("BPAI"), the Federal Circuit held that while common sense or basic knowledge may provide a reason to combine elements present in the prior art, it cannot establish the presence of an element itself. Hear-Wear Technologies ("Hear-Wear") owns U.S. Patent No. 7,016,512 ("the '512 patent"), relating to a hearing aid that has three components. The components that make up the hearing aid are a behind the ear audio processing module, an in-the-canal module, and a connector between the two. Initially, during prosecution, the examiner rejected dependent claims 3 and 9 for obviousness, but ultimately allowed all claims. K/S HIMPP ("HIMPP") filed an inter partes re-examination of the '512 patent, arguing that claims 3 and 9 were obvious for the same reasons supplied by the Examiner during the original prosecution. The re-examination examiner rejected HIMPP's arguments due to lack of evidence and ultimately maintained the patentability of claims 3 and 9. HIMPP appealed the examiner's decision to the BPAI, which found that although HIMPP argued that the content of claims 3 and 9 was “well known,” HIMPP failed to direct the Board to any portion of the record for underlying factual support for its arguments for obviousness, and therefore affirmed the Examiner. On appeal to the Federal Circuit, HIMPP argued that the detachable connection was already known, and that adding the detachable connection was a natural combination of prior art. The majority of the panel (Judges Lourie and Wallach) affirmed the BPAI, holding that record evidence was required to support an assertion that the structural features of claims 3 and 9 of the ’512 patent were known prior art elements. Because HIMPP did not provide any evidence, and the Board cannot accept general conclusions about what is “basic knowledge” or “common sense” as a replacement for documentary evidence for core factual findings in a determination of patentability, there was no support for HIMPP's position. Comments (0) | Print | Send | del.icio.us
| Linking Blogs | 1266 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Internet Discussion Systems as Prior Art
Posted At : June 10, 2014 5:38 PM | Posted By : Blog Staff
Anticipation,Patents,Federal Circuit cases,Claim construction
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Suffolk Technologies, LLC, v. AOL Inc., and Google Inc., adds another item to the list of "printed publications" that may preclude patenting of a claimed invention: posts on internet newsgroups. In June 2012 Suffolk Technologies, LLC sued Google Inc. for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,081,835 ("the '835 patent"), related to "methods and systems for controlling a server that supplies files to computers rendering web pages." Google argued that a newsgroup post—made nine months before the priority date of the '835 patent by a college student in response to a question posed in a discussion of common gateway interface—anticipated the claims at issue. The district court agreed with Google and granted summary judgment of invalidity. Suffolk appealed the district court's decision, arguing that the court improperly construed the claim term "generating said supplied field," and that the newsgroup post should not be considered a printed publication under 35 U.S.C. § 102. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court on both counts. Suffolk argued that the district court erred by deciding that the newsgroup post was prior art, deciding that the post was accurate and reliable, omitting the testimony of their validity expert, and ultimately granting summary judgment. Suffolk asserted that the post was not made publically accessible because locating it would be too difficult, and the audience was mostly "beginners" and therefore not those of ordinary skill in the art. Suffold also asserted that, if presented to a jury, a "'second-hand reproduction of an old Usenet post'" would be discredited and that the testimony of their validity expert was crucial to the decision, and as a result summary judgment was inappropriate. The Federal Circuit was unpersuaded by any of Suffolk's arguments. Of particular note, while the post in question was non-indexed and non-searchable, the Federal Circuit held that is was nonetheless sufficiently publically accessible to be considered a printed publication because someone interested in the topic could easily locate a list of posts in the newsgroup based on its hierarchical organization. Further, the court held that the post in question was sufficiently disseminated because dialogue with the intended audience was the entire purpose of the newsgroup posting; the post elicited a number of responses; and many more people may have viewed the post. While the decision deals with printed publications and public disclosure under pre-AIA § 102, the analysis is unlikely to be any different under the AIA. The full decision is available here. Comments (0) | Print | Send | del.icio.us
| Linking Blogs | 1256 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Federal Circuit Finds Clones Unpatentable
| Linking Blogs | 704 Views MVS Filewrapper® Blog: "Insolubly Ambiguous" Standard not Applicable at the USPTO
| Linking Blogs | 2005 Views More Entries
Abandonment (patent) (1) [RSS]Abandonment (trademark) (3) [RSS]Abandonment, suppression, and concealment (1) [RSS]Access (2) [RSS]America Inventors Act (2) [RSS]Analogous art (1) [RSS]Anticipation (36) [RSS]Antitrust (10) [RSS]Arbitrary/fanciful marks (3) [RSS]Assignments (8) [RSS]Attorney fees/exceptional cases (28) [RSS]Attorney-client privilege (3) [RSS]Best mode (2) [RSS]Certificate of correction (2) [RSS]Civil procedure (45) [RSS]Claim and issue preclusion (13) [RSS]Claim construction (87) [RSS]Claim differentiation (6) [RSS]Claim vitiation (6) [RSS]Collective works (3) [RSS]Compilations (2) [RSS]Conception (2) [RSS]Copyrights (88) [RSS]Damages (33) [RSS]Derivation (0) [RSS]Derivative works (5) [RSS]Descriptive marks (6) [RSS]Design patents (8) [RSS]Digital Millennium Copyright Act (9) [RSS]Dilution (5) [RSS]Doctrine of equivalents (29) [RSS]Domestic Industry (2) [RSS]Double patenting (5) [RSS]Duplication right (1) [RSS]En banc (22) [RSS]Enablement (14) [RSS]Experimental use (3) [RSS]Fair use (8) [RSS]False advertising (7) [RSS]Famous marks (5) [RSS]Federal Circuit cases (356) [RSS]First sale doctrine (20) [RSS]Generic marks (8) [RSS]Geographically descriptive marks (1) [RSS]Immunity (9) [RSS]Indefiniteness (17) [RSS]Inducing and contributory infringement (21) [RSS]Inequitable conduct (30) [RSS]Inherency (2) [RSS]Injunctions (42) [RSS]Interference (3) [RSS]International (37) [RSS]Inventorship (7) [RSS]ITC (8) [RSS]Joint authorship (2) [RSS]Joint infringement (4) [RSS]Laches (4) [RSS]Lanham Act (2) [RSS]Legislation (95) [RSS]Licensing (46) [RSS]Likelihood of confusion (26) [RSS]Literal infringement (35) [RSS]Marking (patent) (3) [RSS]Means-plus-function (14) [RSS]Merger doctrine (2) [RSS]News (137) [RSS]Notice of patent rights (3) [RSS]Obviousness (80) [RSS]On sale bar (8) [RSS]Originality (2) [RSS]Other (6) [RSS]Parody (2) [RSS]Patent exhaustion (2) [RSS]Patent misuse (2) [RSS]Patent term (4) [RSS]Patentable subject matter (25) [RSS]Patents (193) [RSS]Performance right (3) [RSS]Personal jurisdiction (7) [RSS]Post-grant proceedings (1) [RSS]Preemption (3) [RSS]Priority (14) [RSS]Prosecution history estoppel (15) [RSS]PTAB (4) [RSS]Public use (7) [RSS]Publication (copyright) (1) [RSS]Reduction to practice (5) [RSS]Reexamination (14) [RSS]Registration (8) [RSS]Reissue (3) [RSS]Reverse doctrine of equivalents (1) [RSS]Right of privacy and publicity (2) [RSS]Secondary meaning (3) [RSS]Standards-setting organizations (3) [RSS]Standing (20) [RSS]Statute of limitations (4) [RSS]Subject matter jurisdiction (43) [RSS]Substantial similarity (3) [RSS]Suggestive marks (1) [RSS]Supreme Court (53) [RSS]Surveys (2) [RSS]Term (copyright) (2) [RSS]Term (patent) (2) [RSS]Trade dress (5) [RSS]Trade secrets (8) [RSS]Trademarks (85) [RSS]TTAB (14) [RSS]Unfair competition (7) [RSS]Use in commerce (5) [RSS]USPTO (140) [RSS]Willful infringement (11) [RSS]Work product doctrine (1) [RSS]Works for hire (1) [RSS]Written description (19) [RSS]
MVS Filewrapper® Blog: Passing Off and Taking Credit for Architectural PlansMVS Filewrapper® Blog: Should Trade Secret Misappropriation be Federalized?