Opinion ID: 210490
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standard for Determining Declaratory Relief Jurisdiction

Text: A party seeking to base jurisdiction on the Declaratory Judgment Act bears the burden of proving that the facts alleged, `under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between the parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.' MedImmune, 127 S.Ct. at 771 (quoting Md. Cas. Co. v. Pac. Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826 (1941)). Prior to MedImmune, our case law required that there be both (1) an explicit threat or other action by the patentee, which creates a reasonable apprehension on the part of the declaratory plaintiff that it will face an infringement suit, and (2) present activity which could constitute infringement or concrete steps taken with the intent to conduct such activity. See, e.g., BP Chems. Ltd. v. Union Carbide Corp., 4 F.3d 975, 978 (Fed.Cir. 1993). However, [t]he Supreme Court's opinion in MedImmune represents a rejection of our reasonable apprehension of suit test. SanDisk, 480 F.3d at 1380; see also Teva, 482 F.3d at 1339. In MedImmune, the Supreme Court held that in order for a court to have jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment action: the dispute be definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests; and that it be real and substantial and admit of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts. Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment. 127 S.Ct. at 771 (internal citation and quotations omitted). In SanDisk, we further explain: Article III jurisdiction may be met where the patentee takes a position that puts the declaratory judgment plaintiff in the position of either pursuing arguably illegal behavior or abandoning that which he claims a right to do. . . . We hold only that where a patentee asserts rights under a patent based on certain identified ongoing or planned activity of another party, and where that party contends that it has the right to engage in the accused activity without license, an Article III case or controversy will arise and the party need not risk a suit for infringement by engaging in the identified activity before seeking a declaration of its legal rights. SanDisk, 480 F.3d at 1381. A useful question to ask in determining whether an actual controversy exists is what, if any, cause of action the declaratory judgment defendant may have against the declaratory judgment plaintiff: The concepts of adverse legal rights and legal risk, used in [prior] cases to describe the standard for jurisdiction require that there be an underlying legal cause of action that the declaratory defendant could have brought or threatened to bring, if not for the fact that the declaratory plaintiff has preempted it. Without an underlying legal cause of action, any adverse economic interest that the declaratory plaintiff may have against the declaratory defendant is not a legally cognizable interest sufficient to confer declaratory judgment jurisdiction. Microchip Tech. Inc. v. Chamberlain Group, Inc., 441 F.3d 936, 943 (Fed.Cir. 2006). The burden is on the party claiming declaratory judgment jurisdiction to establish that such jurisdiction existed at the time the claim for declaratory relief was filed and that it has continued since. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 459 n. 10, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974); Super Sack Mfg. Corp. v. Chase Packaging Corp., 57 F.3d 1054, 1058 (Fed.Cir.1995); Int'l Med. Prosthetics Research Assocs., Inc. v. Gore Enter. Holdings, Inc., 787 F.2d 572, 575 (Fed.Cir.1986). If . . . a party has actually been charged with infringement of the patent, there is, necessarily, a case or controversy adequate to support jurisdiction at that time. Cardinal Chem. Co. v. Morton Int'l, Inc., 508 U.S. 83, 96, 113 S.Ct. 1967, 124 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993). Further, once that burden has been met, absent further information, that jurisdiction continues. Id. at 98, 113 S.Ct. 1967. The burden of bringing forth such further information may logically rest with the party challenging jurisdiction, see id. at 98, 113 S.Ct. 1967, but the actual burden of proof remains with the party seeking to invoke jurisdiction. See Super Sack, 57 F.3d at 1058; Int'l Med. Prosthetics Research Assocs., 787 F.2d at 575. The rule in federal cases is that an actual controversy must be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint [was] filed. Steffel, 415 U.S. at 459 n. 10, 94 S.Ct. 1209. The dissent's view that Cardinal Chemical holds that the burden shifts to the party seeking to divest the court of jurisdiction to prove there is no longer a current case or controversy reads more into the language of Cardinal Chemical than is justified. First, the Supreme Court makes clear at the outset of its opinion that [the] practice [the Federal Circuit's uniform practice of declaring the issue of validity moot if it affirms the district court's finding of noninfringement], and the issue before us, therefore concern the jurisdiction of an intermediate appellate court  not the jurisdiction of either a trial court or this Court. In the trial court, of course, a party seeking a declaratory judgment has the burden of establishing the existence of an actual case or controversy. 508 U.S. at 95, 113 S.Ct. 1967. Further, the Court only said that [i]f a party to an appeal suggests that the controversy has, since the rendering of the judgment below, become moot, that party bears the burden of coming forward with subsequent events that have produced that alleged result. Id. at 98, 113 S.Ct. 1967 (emphasis added). The Court did not hold that the ultimate burden of proof in the trial court was on other than the party seeking to invoke declaratory judgment jurisdiction. With the basic principles for determining declaratory judgment jurisdiction in mind, we analyze the question of whether the court currently has declaratory judgment jurisdiction over Nucleonics's counterclaims.