Justia U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

The petitioner, a Transportation Specialist employed by the Department of the Army, was suspended for ten days based on alleged misconduct. On the same day the suspension was proposed, she filed a whistleblower complaint with the Office of Special Counsel. The agency implemented the suspension several months later. The Special Counsel subsequently notified her that its investigation was terminated and that it would not seek corrective action on her behalf.After receiving the Special Counsel’s notice, the petitioner filed an individual right of action (IRA) appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board (Board) nearly three weeks after the statutory deadline. An administrative judge for the Board issued a timeliness order, to which the petitioner responded by arguing her appeal was timely under the relevant statute and that equitable tolling did not apply. The administrative judge dismissed the appeal as untimely, finding it was filed 24 days after the 60-day deadline triggered by the Special Counsel’s notice. The petitioner sought review by the full Board, but due to a lack of quorum, the initial decision became the final decision of the Board.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court held that when the Special Counsel issues notification terminating an investigation—even if this occurs more than 120 days after the initial complaint—the federal employee has 60 days from the date of notification to file an IRA appeal with the Board. The court rejected the petitioner’s argument that the 60-day deadline did not apply if the Special Counsel’s notice came after the 120-day period. Concluding that the appeal was untimely, the court affirmed the Board’s dismissal. View "Walker v. Merit Systems Protection Board" on Justia Law

Ronald L. Green, a revenue agent employed by the Internal Revenue Service in Las Vegas, was indefinitely suspended in August 2006 on suspicion of filing fraudulent tax returns. Shortly before the suspension took effect, he applied for immediate disability retirement, citing medical conditions and workplace stress. After his suspension, he initiated arbitration to challenge the agency’s action and alleged discrimination through an EEO complaint. The Office of Personnel Management approved his retirement in January 2007. In March 2007, an arbitrator reversed his suspension but denied his discrimination claims. The agency retroactively dated his retirement to his last day of pay and removed references to other adverse actions from his record.Mr. Green’s subsequent legal efforts included appeals to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and district court, both of which ruled against him, with the Ninth Circuit affirming. In May 2023, he appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board, asserting that his 2006 retirement was involuntary due to agency actions and discrimination. The administrative judge dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, finding that Mr. Green failed to nonfrivolously allege involuntariness. The decision became the Board’s final determination.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed Mr. Green’s petition. It first determined jurisdiction, concluding that Mr. Green’s explicit waiver of discrimination claims allowed the court to review the non-discrimination aspects. The court found that Mr. Green had forfeited arguments about agency failure to restore his employment after arbitration because these were not properly raised before the Board. On the remaining issue, the court held that Mr. Green failed to nonfrivolously allege that his retirement was involuntary, either through coercion or misinformation, and affirmed the Board’s decision. View "Green v. Merit Systems Protection Board" on Justia Law

The case involves two patents owned by Netlist, Inc., which concern improvements to computer memory modules, specifically relating to buffering techniques and the use of chip-select signals compliant with JEDEC industry standards. The patents describe a memory module architecture that utilizes buffering circuitry to improve speed and signal integrity, while also accommodating timing delays through the CAS latency specification. Petitioners challenged all claims of these patents in inter partes review proceedings, arguing that they were unpatentable as obvious over a combination of a prior patent (Perego) and an industry standard specification (JESD79-2) published by JEDEC.The Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office presided over these inter partes reviews. The Board determined that the combination of Perego and JESD79-2 disclosed all limitations of the challenged claims and found that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine these references, given indications in Perego of compatibility with JEDEC standards and the market dominance of JEDEC-compliant modules. Netlist appealed, arguing that the combination would defeat the intended purpose of Perego, which was to support Rambus architecture, and would eliminate key benefits such as backward compatibility.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the Board’s decision. The court held that the relevant inquiry is whether the combination was operable for the purposes of the claimed invention, not for the purposes of the prior art reference. The court concluded that the Board’s findings on motivation to combine were supported by substantial evidence and that compatibility with Rambus or backward compatibility was not an objective of the claimed invention. Accordingly, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s determination that all claims of the patents were unpatentable as obvious. View "In Re NETLIST, INC. " on Justia Law

A Turkish steel producer, Kaptan, was subject to an administrative review by the U.S. Department of Commerce concerning antidumping duties imposed on rebar exported from Turkey to the United States. During the review period, Turkey experienced significant inflation. Kaptan argued that the relevant “date of sale” for calculating duty rates should be the date contracts were signed, claiming that material terms were fixed then and that using the later invoice date unfairly reflected price increases caused by inflation. Kaptan further maintained that its internal policies ensured contract terms could not be changed after signing without board approval.The Department of Commerce determined that the invoice date, not the contract date, was the appropriate “date of sale,” as Kaptan’s own responses indicated that certain material terms, including size breakdowns and quantities, could be modified until shipment or invoicing. Commerce issued a final antidumping duty rate using the invoice date, and the U.S. Court of International Trade upheld this decision. The Trade Court found that Commerce’s reliance on the invoice date was supported by substantial evidence, including Kaptan’s questionnaire responses and contract documentation, and declined to address whether Commerce exceeded its regulatory authority, as there was no statutory ambiguity at issue.On appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Kaptan argued that Commerce’s regulation was an unlawful presumption and that its application was unsupported by substantial evidence. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Trade Court’s judgment, holding that Commerce’s regulation establishes a starting point rather than a presumption, and that substantial evidence supported Commerce’s finding that material terms were not fixed until the invoice date. The court further held that Commerce had acted within its statutory authority and rejected Kaptan’s remaining arguments. View "KAPTAN DEMIR CELIK ENDUSTRISI VE TICARET A.S. v. US " on Justia Law

The plaintiff, a Marine Corps Reserve officer, served on active duty and was placed on medical hold due to a service-related condition. His active-duty orders were extended several times, but ultimately expired in March 2017 because he declined to waive the "sanctuary" protection under 10 U.S.C. § 12686, which restricts the involuntary release of reservists from active duty within two years of qualifying for active-duty retirement. He challenged his release, asserting it was unlawful and deprived him of active-duty retirement benefits.The United States Court of Federal Claims initially held that the Marine Corps unlawfully required the waiver as a condition for further extension of active duty, remanding the case to the Board for Correction of Naval Records to determine the appropriate remedy. The Board corrected his records to show he remained on active duty until mid-April 2017, entering the sanctuary period. However, the Board found that the Secretary of the Navy would have immediately used his authority under § 12686 to approve the plaintiff’s release, preventing him from reaching twenty years of active-duty service required for retirement. The Claims Court upheld the Board’s decision, except for a minor correction to the release date, and issued a final judgment.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the Claims Court’s decision de novo but applied the same standard: whether the Board’s decision was arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law, or unsupported by substantial evidence. The court held that the Secretary of the Navy, under both statute and regulation, had broad authority to approve release from active duty during the sanctuary period, not limited to cases of physical disability or separation for cause. The court also found the constructive service doctrine did not require the plaintiff to remain on active duty through the sanctuary period. The Claims Court’s decision was affirmed. View "FAERBER v. US " on Justia Law

Wilbert Evans served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was stationed in Japan, where he claimed to have flown to Vietnam to deliver mail as a postal clerk. In 2004, he applied for service-connected disability benefits for multiple myeloma and Type II diabetes mellitus, alleging herbicide exposure in Vietnam. The Department of Veterans Affairs regional office denied these claims for lack of service connection. After subsequent attempts to reopen these claims and additional claims for head trauma and hearing loss, all were denied again, most recently in September 2022. Mary L. Evans, his surviving spouse, appealed the September 2022 denial to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, which granted service connection for multiple myeloma based on Camp Lejeune exposure but denied the other claims.Ms. Evans appealed the Board’s decision to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Her briefing focused on the denial of service connection for Type II diabetes mellitus, arguing the Board erred in finding no evidence of service in Vietnam. The Veterans Court reversed the Board’s denial of service connection for diabetes but left undisturbed the grant for multiple myeloma and dismissed the other claims due to lack of argument. Ms. Evans later sought reconsideration, arguing for an earlier effective date for the myeloma claim based on the same Vietnam service, but the Veterans Court found this argument waived as it was not raised in her original briefing.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the Veterans Court’s denial of reconsideration. The Federal Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to review waiver determinations or challenges to the application of law to facts in this case, as the Veterans Court’s decision was based on finding the myeloma argument waived. The appeal was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. View "EVANS v. COLLINS " on Justia Law

The case concerns the patentability of certain claims related to virtual reality (VR) viewers designed for use with smartphones. Early VR viewers used housings to hold smartphones, allowing users to experience VR, but these housings made it difficult to interact with the phone’s touchscreen. The patents at issue disclose a VR viewer with a housing and an input mechanism that lets users manipulate the smartphone’s touchscreen from outside the housing, thereby improving usability. Google LLC challenged multiple claims of three patents owned by DDC Technology, LLC, arguing that they were obvious in light of prior art references: Japanese Patent Publication JP 3176588 (Kondo) and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0082963 (Chu).The United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reviewed Google’s petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of the patents. The Board found that while the prior art references taught most claim limitations and a motivation to combine existed, DDC’s evidence of nonobviousness—including copying by Google and industry praise—outweighed Google’s evidence of obviousness for certain claims. The PTAB also resolved disputes regarding claim constructions, such as the meaning of terms like “disposed on,” “lever,” and “linkage element made from a flexible material,” generally adopting DDC’s interpretations and finding Google did not prove unpatentability for the surviving claims.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the PTAB’s decisions. The court affirmed the PTAB’s findings, holding that substantial evidence supported the Board’s factual findings, including copying and industry praise, and that the Board properly considered and weighed secondary considerations of nonobviousness. The Federal Circuit also upheld the PTAB’s claim constructions and found no violations of the Administrative Procedure Act. Ultimately, the court affirmed the PTAB’s judgment that Google failed to prove the challenged claims were unpatentable as obvious. View "GOOGLE LLC v. DDC TECHNOLOGY, LLC " on Justia Law

Landowners in Florida who own property adjacent to a former rail corridor challenged the federal government’s issuance of a Notice of Interim Trail Use (“NITU”) under the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983. This NITU allowed the rail corridor to be converted to a recreational trail rather than being abandoned completely. The landowners asserted that when the NITU was issued, it blocked their reversionary interests from taking effect, amounting to an uncompensated taking under the Fifth Amendment. The crux of the dispute centered on whether the railroad’s original property interests, acquired through various deeds and a condemnation judgment, were fee simple estates or merely easements.The United States Court of Federal Claims reviewed the evidence, including the deeds and the condemnation judgment, and determined that the language of each deed unambiguously conveyed a fee simple interest to the railroad. For the condemnation judgment, the court found the language ambiguous but, after consulting extrinsic evidence from the condemnation proceeding, also concluded it conveyed fee simple title. On this basis, the Claims Court held that no reversionary interest remained with the landowners, and thus no taking had occurred. The court granted summary judgment for the government.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the Claims Court’s summary judgment de novo. It agreed with the lower court’s interpretation of Florida law, finding that the relevant deeds and condemnation judgment conveyed fee simple title to the railroad. The court explained that, where the language of a deed is unambiguous, it must be enforced as written, and extrinsic evidence is only considered if ambiguity exists. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Claims Court’s judgment, holding that the landowners did not retain a reversionary interest and that the issuance of the NITU did not constitute a compensable taking. View "BARRON v. US " on Justia Law

Valtrus Innovations Ltd. owns a patent that describes methods and computer-readable memory for merging search-result lists from multiple search engines. Google LLC sought inter partes review of this patent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board, arguing that the claims were unpatentable as obvious in view of several prior art references, most notably a patent known as Bushee. Bushee was filed approximately five weeks before Valtrus’s patent application, making its status as prior art contingent on whether Valtrus could establish an earlier invention date.The Patent Trial and Appeal Board reviewed Google’s challenges and Valtrus’s response that its inventors had conceived of the invention before Bushee’s filing date and exercised continuous diligence in reducing the invention to practice. The Board credited testimony from a co-inventor, supported by invention disclosure documents and metadata generated by Microsoft Word, as sufficient corroboration of the claimed earlier conception date. It further found that the inventors demonstrated reasonable diligence from just before Bushee’s filing date until the patent application was filed. As a result, the Board determined that Bushee was not prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) and that Google had not established unpatentability for any of the patent’s claims.Google appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing that the corroborating evidence for conception was legally insufficient and that the Board lacked substantial evidence for the diligence finding. The Federal Circuit found that metadata from Microsoft Word can serve as independent corroboration and that the Board’s findings on conception and diligence were supported by substantial evidence. The court therefore affirmed the Board’s decision, holding that Google did not prove any of the challenged claims unpatentable. View "GOOGLE LLC v. VALTRUS INNOVATIONS LTD. " on Justia Law

Satius Holding, LLC brought a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc., alleging infringement of claims 1, 11, and 18 of its U.S. Patent No. 6,711,385. The patent concerns a communications apparatus with a coupler designed to match impedances between air and a wireless transmitter/receiver. A central issue was whether the patent's claims, which include transmitting electric or electromagnetic signals over air, are valid given that transmitting electric signals over air is scientifically impossible.The United States District Court for the District of Delaware initially stayed the case pending reexamination by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which rejected independent claim 1 but upheld dependent claims 11 and 18. After the stay was lifted, the District Court conducted claim construction and found claims 1, 11, and 18 to be indefinite, entering a final judgment of invalidity for those claims. Satius appealed this judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the District Court’s findings de novo. It determined that, although transmitting electric signals over air is impossible, the claims were not indefinite because their scope was clear to skilled artisans. However, the court concluded that the claims failed the enablement requirement under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a), as the patent specification did not enable the full scope of the invention, including the scientifically impossible embodiments. The Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court’s final judgment of invalidity, holding that claims 1, 11, and 18 are invalid for lack of enablement, and awarded costs to Samsung. View "SATIUS HOLDING, LLC v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. " on Justia Law