Opinion ID: 2620291
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Dismissed Claims

Text: Apotex appeals the district court’s decision to decline jurisdiction over Apotex’s invalidity counterclaim with respect to the dismissed claims. AstraZeneca abandoned these claims at trial, and following trial the district court dismissed them with prejudice, “effectively represent[ing] a final judgment of non-infringement in favor of all of the defendants.” Amendment at  (emphasis in the original). The district court then declined to exercise its jurisdiction over Apotex’s declaratory judgment counterclaim of invalidity with respect to those claims. Apotex contends that in so doing, the district court abused its discretion ASTRAZENECA LP v. BREATH LIMITED 19 because that discretion is not absolute, arguing that there must be reasons for declining jurisdiction. “If a district court’s decision is consistent with the purposes of the Declaratory Judgment Act and considerations of wise judicial administration, it may exercise its discretion to dismiss (or stay) the case.” Sony, 497 F.3d at 1288. On the other hand, [t]here must be well-founded reasons for declining to entertain a declaratory judgment action. Ab- sent such reasons, precedent establishes that when there has been a direct charge of infringe- ment by the patentee, and an actual controversy exists due to ongoing activity that has been ac- cused of infringement, the accused infringer has the right to resolve the dispute. Capo, Inc. v. Dioptics Med. Prods., Inc., 387 F.3d 1352, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). Apotex argues that it should not be deprived of a final resolution as to all claims for which AstraZeneca asserted infringement, and that AstraZeneca’s failure to submit proof of infringement should not foreclose Apotex from challenging validity. Apotex notes that the counterclaim was fully tried, that the district court already performed an analysis, and that the district court declared narrower claims than the dismissed claims invalid. Nonetheless, this court has indicated that a district court can dismiss an invalidity counterclaim when it finds noninfringement or dismisses an infringement claim with prejudice. See Liquid Dynamics Corp. v. Vaughan Co., Inc., 355 F.3d 1361, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“A district court judge faced with an invalidity counterclaim challenging a patent that it concludes was not infringed may either hear the claim or dismiss it without prejudice, subject to review only for abuse of discretion.”); Nystrom v. TREX Co., Inc., 339 F.3d 20 ASTRAZENECA LP v. BREATH LIMITED 1347, 1351 & n. (Fed. Cir. 2003) (“[T]he district court could have dismissed the counterclaim without prejudice (either with or without a finding that the counterclaim was moot) following the grant of summary judgment of non-infringement.”); Phonometrics, Inc. v. N. Telecom Inc., 133 F.3d 1459, 1468 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (“We have previously held that a district court has discretion to dismiss a counterclaim alleging that a patent is invalid as moot where it finds no infringement.”). The decision whether to accept jurisdiction of a Declaratory Judgment counterclaim is quintessentially left to the discretion of the district court. Here, the district court stated that “the non-infringement judgment firmly and clearly resolves the case, and Apotex has not shown how a judgment of invalidity would provide any additional benefit.” Amendment at . Consistent with this court’s precedent, this is a sufficient reason to decline jurisdiction. Apotex raises an argument in its briefing with respect to how a judgment of invalidity might provide an additional benefit to it over and above the noninfringement judgment. However, AstraZeneca contends, and Apotex does not dispute, that this argument was not raised to the district court. Accordingly, we will not consider it here. See Golden Bridge Tech., Inc. v. Nokia, Inc., 527 F.3d 1318, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (declining to consider a new argument the party could have raised before the district court). We decline to say that the district court abused its discretion in dismissing without prejudice Apotex’s invaASTRAZENECA LP v. BREATH LIMITED 21 lidity counterclaims as to claims 6, 11, 18, and 21–23 of the ’603 Patent. 2