Opinion ID: 220601
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Effect of TransCore

Text: Here, Leviton urges that, because at least some claims of its continuations are narrower than the previously asserted claims, asserting the newer, narrower claims does not “derogate” from the right to practice the licensed claims. Leviton notes that its new claims have GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG 11 limitations such as a “three-wire electrical circuit,” a “mounting flange,” and a “three-hole socket,” which were not claimed in the licensed patents. Leviton cannot deny, however, that the newly as- serted continuations are based on the same disclosure as the previously licensed patents and that, by definition, the continuations can claim no new invention not already supported in the earlier issued patents. Moreover, the same products accused in the earlier suit are accused here. TransCore prohibits a patent licensor from derogating from rights granted under the license by “taking back in any extent that for which [it] has already received consideration.” 563 F.3d at 1279 (quotation omitted). In this case, Leviton’s actions have unquestionably derogated from GPG’s rights under the Settlement Agreement. The same products were accused. The same inventive subject matter was disclosed in the licensed patents. If Leviton did not intend its license of these products to extend to claims presented in continuation patents, it had an obligation to make that clear. From our holding in TransCore it reasonably follows that where, as here, continuations issue from parent patents that previously have been licensed as to certain products, it may be presumed that, absent a clear indication of mutual intent to the contrary, those products are impliedly licensed under the continuations as well. If the parties intend otherwise, it is their burden to make such intent clear in the license. It is well settled that parties are free to contract around an interpretive presumption that does not reflect their intentions. Indeed, “patent license agreements can be written to convey different scopes of promises not to sue, e.g., a promise not to sue under a specific patent or, more broadly, a promise not to sue under any patent the licensor now has or may acquire 12 GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG in the future.” Spindelfabrik Suessen-Schurr, Stahlecker & Grill GmbH v. Schubert & Salzer Maschinenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft, 829 F.2d 1075, 1081 (Fed. Cir. 1987). In this case, Leviton did not do so.