Source: http://www.717madisonplace.com/?m=201008
Timestamp: 2018-06-23 05:54:36
Document Index: 608477643

Matched Legal Cases: ['§271', '§ 271', '§ 271', '§ 271', '§ 271', '§ 271', '§ 271', '§ 271']

August « 2010 « 717 Madison Place
Judge O’Malley’s Answers to Questions for the Record
The Senate Judiciary Committee has posted Federal Circuit nominee Kathleen O’Malley’s answers to its written questions. You may recall that she appeared before the committee to answer questions back on July 28, 2010. If memory serves me correctly, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked no questions relating to patents during the in-person appearance or in the questions for the record.
Judge O’Malley’s written answers to the Senate Judicary Committee’s questions are available here: [Read].
Alice in Wonderland at the Federal Circuit
Advocates at the Federal Circuit sometimes (although rarely) use poetry during oral argument. In Figueroa v. U.S., 466 F.3d 1023 (Fed. Cir. 2006), a case from 2006 concerning the constitutionality of patent fees, one of the attorneys used verse from Alice in Wonderland plus his own original composition: [Listen].
Cybor Watch
It has been almost four years since the Federal Circuit declined to take en banc review of the case Amgen, Inc. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel that would have allowed the court to review its en banc ruling in Cybor Corp v. FAS Techs., Inc., 138 F.3d 1448 (Fed. Cir. 1998). In declining to hear the Amgen case en banc, several of the judges noted that when the right case came along, they would be willing to grant en banc review to reconsider Cybor. [Read].
Judge Clevenger and Judge Moore recently made these comments which seemed to imply discontent with the Cybor precedent during the oral argument of Lincoln National Life Insurance Co. v. Transamerica Life Insurance Co., 2009-1403 (Fed. Cir. June 23, 2010): [Listen].
Judge Moore also made a comment about revisiting Cybor back in 2009 during the oral argument of Kara Technology, Inc. v. Stamps.com, Inc. [Listen].
And, you might recall that the court can take en banc review sua sponte. They did so in Abbott Labs v. Sandoz, Inc., 566 F.3d 1282 (Fed. Cir. 2009) on the limited issue of product-by-process claims, for example.
One wonders if the time is now ripe and whether the vacancies on the court favor granting en banc review of Cybor.
The Cybor decision is available here: [Read].
(I should note that I am not advocating an en banc review of Cybor — just curious if it is coming down the pike.)
In Transocean v. Maersk, 2009-1556 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 18, 2010), the Federal Circuit addressed the issue of whether an offer to sell that is communicated outside the territorial boundaries of the United States by the offeror to the offeree but for performance within the United States satisfies 35 USC §271(a)’s offer to sell provision. The district court ruled that it did not. The Federal Circuit reversed, stating:
Section 271(a) defines infringing conduct: “whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States. . . infringes the patent.” 35 U.S.C. § 271(a). An offer to sell is a distinct act of infringement separate from an actual sale. An offer to sell differs from a sale in that an offer to sell need not be accepted to constitute an act of infringement. See MEMC Elec. Materials, Inc. v. Mitsubishi Materials Silicon Corp., 420 F.3d 1369, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Moreover, the damages that would flow from an unac-cepted offer to sell and an actual sale would likely be quite different. See Timothy R. Holbrook, Liability for the “Threat of Sale”: Assessing Patent Infringement for Offer-ing to Sell an Invention and Implications for the On-Sale Patentability Bar and other Forms of Infringement, 43 Santa Clara L. Rev. 751, 791-92 (2003). We analyze an offer to sell under § 271(a) using traditional contract principles. Rotec Indus., Inc. v. Mitsubishi Corp., 215 F.3d 1246 (Fed. Cir. 2000). There is no dispute that there was an offer to sell in this case, but Maersk USA argues that the offer was made in Norway, not the United States, thereby absolving it of § 271(a) liability.
Maersk A/S (a Danish company) and Statoil ASA (a Norwegian company) negotiated the contract that is the subject of this alleged offer to sell. Their U.S. affiliates, Maersk USA and Statoil executed the contract in Norway. The contract included an “Operating Area” of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The district court held that because the negotiations and execution took place outside the U.S., this could not be an offer to sell within the United States under § 271(a).
Transocean argues that to hold that this contract be-tween two U.S. companies for performance in the U.S. is not an offer to sell within the U.S. simply because the contract was negotiated and executed abroad would be inconsistent with Lightcubes, LLC v. Northern Light Products, Inc., 523 F.3d 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (holding that a foreign company cannot avoid liability for a sale by delivering the product outside the U.S. to a U.S. customer for importation). Transocean argues that a contract between two U.S. companies for delivery or performance in the U.S. must be an offer to sell within the United States under § 271(a).
Maersk USA argues that Rotec, 215 F.3d 1246 and MEMC, 420 F.3d 1369 require that, for there to be an offer to sell within the U.S., the offer activities must occur within the U.S. It argues that the negotiations and execution outside the U.S. preclude offer to sell liability in this case.
This case presents the question whether an offer which is made in Norway by a U.S. company to a U.S. company to sell a product within the U.S., for delivery and use within the U.S. constitutes an offer to sell within the U.S. under § 271(a). We conclude that it does. Sec-tion 271(a) states that “whoever . . . offers to sell . . . within the United States any patented invention . . . infringes.” In order for an offer to sell to constitute in-fringement, the offer must be to sell a patented invention within the United States. The focus should not be on the location of the offer, but rather the location of the future sale that would occur pursuant to the offer.
The offer to sell liability was added to the patent stat-ute to conform to the April 1994 Uruguay Round’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS). The underlying purpose of holding someone who offers to sell liable for infringement is to prevent “generat-ing interest in a potential infringing product to the com-mercial detriment of the rightful patentee.” 3D Sys., Inc. v. Aarotech Labs., Inc., 160 F.3d 1373, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 1998). The offer must be for a potentially infringing article. Id. We are mindful of the presumption against extraterritoriality. Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 441 (2007). “It is the general rule under United States patent law that no infringement occurs when a patented product is made and sold in another country.” Id. This presumption has guided other courts to conclude that the contemplated sale would occur within the United States in order for an offer to sell to constitute infringe-ment. See, e.g., Semiconductor Energy Lab. Co. v. Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp., 531 F. Supp. 2d 1084, 1110-11 (N.D. Cal. 2007). We agree that the location of the con-templated sale controls whether there is an offer to sell within the United States.
The statute precludes “offers to sell . . . within the United States.” To adopt Maersk USA’s position would have us read the statute as “offers made within the United States to sell” or “offers made within the United States to sell within the United States.” First, this is not the statutory language. Second, this interpretation would exalt form over substance by allowing a U.S. company to travel abroad to make offers to sell back into the U.S. without any liability for infringement. See 3D Sys., 160 F.3d at 1379. This company would generate interest in its product in the U.S. to the detriment of the U.S. patent owner, the type of harm that offer to sell within the U.S. liability is meant to remedy. Id. These acts create a real harm in the U.S. to a U.S. patentee.
Neither Rotec nor MEMC preclude our determination that an offer by a U.S. company to sell a patented inven-tion to another U.S. company for delivery and use in the U.S. constitutes an offer to sell within the U.S. First, SEB S.A. v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 594 F.3d 1360, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2010) contemplated whether the territorial reach of the offer to sell language had been decided by Rotec and concluded that it had not. The defendants in Rotec did argue that because the offer was made in China, not the U.S., they did not infringe. Rotec, 215 F.3d at 1251. And the Rotec court discussed the evidence regard-ing meetings and communications made in the United States. Id. at 1255. The Rotec court held that there was no offer to sell, not because of the location of the offer or of the ultimate sale, but rather because there was no evi-dence that an offer was communicated or conveyed by the defendants. Id. at 1255 (“None of this evidence, however, establishes any communication by Defendants with any third party.”). In concurrence, Judge Newman indicates that she would have instead decided the case on the ground that there was no offer which contemplated a sale within the U.S. Id. at 1259 (Newman, J., concurring). The MEMC case is even further attenuated as it did not even consider location of the offer or the contemplated sale, but instead held there was no offer to sell because the emails at issue, which contained only technical data and no price terms, cannot constitute an offer that could be made into a binding contract by acceptance. 420 F.3d at 1376.
We conclude that neither Rotec nor MEMC control this case. We hold that the district court erred because a contract between two U.S. companies for performance in the U.S. may constitute an offer to sell within the U.S. under § 271(a). The fact that the offer was negotiated or a contract signed while the two U.S. companies were abroad does not remove this case from statutory liability. We therefore vacate the district court’s summary judgment of noninfringement.4
The offer to sell issue was discussed with appellant’s counsel during oral argument and can be heard here: [Listen].
The entire oral argument can be heard here: [Listen].
The court’s opinion is available here: [Read].
Chief Judge Rader’s Portrait Presentation
This might be of interest to patent practitioners in the D.C. area:
“Each of a plurality”
Karen Hazzah noted on her All Things Pros blog on July 21st, the results of the Ex Parte Jourdan (Intel) appeal. It is worth highlighting again as it concerned the language “each of a plurality.”
Given the prevalence of this language (as well as the language “each of the plurality . . .”) in computer system claims, I think it will be a frequent point of contention in the future — particularly during patent litigation.
The illustrative claim at issue read as follows:
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
assigning an identification number (ID) to each of a plurality of micro-operations (uops) to identify a branch path to which the uop belongs;
determining whether one or more branches are predicted correctly;
determining which of the one or more branch paths are dependent on a mispredicted branch; and
determining whether one or more of the plurality of uops belong to a branch path that is dependent on the mispredicted branch based on their assigned IDs.
The Board ruled as follows:
The Appellants argue that “the cited claim language as a whole explicitly requires that a separate ID is assigned ‘to each of a plurality of micro-operations (uops)’ (emphasis added).” (Reply Br. 2.) “[T]he PTO gives claims their ‘broadest reasonable interpretation.'” In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (quoting In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000)). “Moreover, limitations are not to be read into the claims from the specification.” In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989)).
Here, claim 1 does not require that the ID assigned to each microoperation be “separate.” i.e., unique. We refuse to read such a requirement into the representative claim. Assigning the same ID to each microoperation in one of the reference’s instruction streams is enough to anticipate the disputed limitations. Based on the aforementioned facts and analysis, therefore, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in finding that Sharangpani assigns an ID to each of a plurality of micro-operations as required by representative claim 1.
For other issues that arise from use of the word “each,” see these previous posts: [Link] and [Link].
Federal Circuit nominee Judge Kathleen O’Malley was affirmed by the Federal Circuit last week. To be clear, she has not yet been “confirmed” by the Senate; but, her district court judgment was “affirmed” by Judges Bryson, Gajarsa, and Prost in Baran v. Medical Device Technologies, Inc. et al., 2010-1058 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 12, 2010).
Judge Linn noted during his presentation at the AIPLA CLE in Denver that when the Federal Circuit sits in Atlanta this November, they will be sitting at: Georgia State University College of Law, Emory University School of Law, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, and the U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
Oral Argument of the Month — Laryngeal Mask Co. Ltd. v. Ambu
The Federal Circuit heard oral argument in Laryngeal Mask Co. Ltd. v. Ambu earlier this month. The court has not yet issued its opinion in the case. The case concerns US patents 7,156,100 and 5,303,697.
This was an interesting oral argument. It is one of those arguments that is good for new prosecutors to listen to so that they are aware of the arguments that will be brought against their work product. The oral argument included a host of arguments that go toward the preparation and prosecution of an application.
Usually, “the present invention” argument is raised by an accused infringer who wants to narrow claim language to what was described as “the present invention” or “the invention” in the specification or prosecution history. This case was a little different in that the patentee (rather than the accused infringer) argued that the language describing “the present invention” did not include the element that the accused infringer was trying to read into the claim. Therefore, the patentee argued that the claim should be construed broadly based upon “the present invention” language.
Detailed Description of the Invention vs. Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments
Similar to the above, use of “the invention” as part of the Detailed Description heading was this time argued by the accused infringer to limit the claims to the disclosed embodiment.
Disclosure of a Single Embodiment
Judge Lourie asked about the disclosure of a single embodiment described as the preferred embodiment. He queried whether disclosure of a single embodiment described as “the preferred embodiment” might require “preferred” to be read as “only.” You can listen to his comment here: [Listen].
Broad Summary language
The patentee argued for a broad claim construction based on a broad Summary section of the patent.
Language from the Brief Description of the Drawings
The accused infringer argued that the claims should be limited based on use of the phrase “the present invention” to describe Fig. 1 of the patent.
Posted in Claim construction, Oral Argument of the Month | 1 Comment »
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