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

Mosaic manufactures a money-clip wallet called the Smart Money Clip II (SMCII). Ridge makes the Ridge Wallet, which is nearly identical to the SMCII. Each company accused the other of patent infringement. Mosaic also claimed infringement of trade dress. Following claim construction of the terms “lip,” and “of varying thickness,” the parties stipulated that Mosaic cannot prove infringement of its patent. The district court then granted summary judgment of invalidity of Ridge’s patent, based on anticipation, and denied Mosaic’s motion for summary judgment that Ridge had obtained its patent through inequitable conduct. The district court also granted Ridge summary judgment on Mosaic’s trade dress claim, finding the trade dress invalid on multiple grounds.The Federal Circuit upheld the claim construction and affirmed the dismissal of Mosaic’s infringement claim. The court found genuine disputes of material fact as to whether Mosaic’s SMCII product is prior art to Ridge’s patent and reversed the grant of summary judgment of invalidity of Ridge’s patent. The court vacated the denial of summary judgment on Mosaic’s inequitable conduct defense and affirmed the grant of summary judgment that Mosaic’s trade dress is invalid because the design is functional. View "Mosaic Brands, Inc. v. Ridge Wallet LLC" on Justia Law

Plastipak’s patents, each entitled “Lightweight Plastic Container and Preform” claim priority to U.S. Application 11/749,501, filed in 2007, which was a continuation-in-part of Application 11/368,860, filed in 2006. Each patent lists Darr and Morgan as inventors. Plastipak sued Premium Waters for infringement. Premium argued that the patents should have included a third co-inventor, Falzoni, an employee of SACMI, an Italian company. Darr had communicated with Falzoni in 2005.The district court entered summary judgment, rejecting the suit as invalid for nonjoinder under pre-AIA (America Invents Act) 35 U.S.C. 102(f). The Federal Circuit reversed, finding that genuine issues of material fact precluded summary judgment. A reasonable fact-finder, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to Plastipak as the nonmoving party, could reject Premium’s position on Falzoni’s status as a joint inventor. View "Plastipak Packaging, Inc v. Premium Waters, Inc." on Justia Law

ADASA’s patent relates to methods and systems for commissioning radio-frequency identification (RFID) transponders (RFID tags), which are used, like barcodes, to identify and track objects by encoding data electronically in a compact label. RFID tags can communicate the data they encode over a distance using a radio-frequency transmission. ADASA sued Avery for infringement. ADASA argued that the asserted claims are neither anticipated by the Kuhno patent or the book RFID for Dummies nor rendered obvious by RFID for Dummies in combination with Electronic Product Code standards.The district court found the patent was directed to eligible subject matter. 35 U.S.C. 101 and valid under 35 U.S.C. 102, 103. The Federal Circuit affirmed as to eligibility but reversed as to anticipation and obviousness. There is a triable issue of fact regarding the scope of disclosures in RFID for Dummies. While Kuhno discusses the relevant concepts in different terms, with different points of emphasis than ADASA's patent, the court erred in interpreting these linguistic differences as fatal to a finding of anticipation. The district court was within its discretion to impose discovery sanctions and did not violate Avery’s due process rights but erroneously tied the monetary award to the “number of infringing tags determined to exist as of the date of the verdict.” View "ADASA, Inc. v. Avery Dennison Corp." on Justia Law

Google previously petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of Hammond’s 483 patent, which is related to and shares the same specification as the 816 patent, disclosing a communication system that allows a communication device to execute one or more applications remotely. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that all challenged claims of the 483 patent would have been obvious based on prior art combinations that included Gilmore and Dodrill. Hammond did not appeal and the decision became final.Google petitioned for IPR of all claims of the 816 patent but did not assert the same grounds against all claims. The Board held claims 1–13 and 20–30 would have been obvious over combinations of prior art, including Gilmore and Dodrill; Google failed to show claim 14 would have been obvious in view of prior art (Gilmore and Creamer) and also failed to show dependent claims 15–19 were unpatentable.The Federal Circuit reversed in part. The Board’s determination that claim 18 of the 483 patent is unpatentable renders claim 18 of the 816 patent unpatentable based on collateral estoppel. Claim 14 of the 816 patent rises and falls with claim 18 and is, therefore, unpatentable. The court rejected Google’s argument that dependent claims 15–17 and 19 would have been obvious based on the Board’s findings as to parallel dependent claims. View "Google, LLC v. Hammond Development International, Inc." on Justia Law

Treehouse sued Valve for infringement of its patent, which discloses a method of collecting data from an information network in response to user choices of a plurality of users navigating character-enabled network sites on the network. Valve owns two accused video games that involve team-based competitions. The parties adopted the interpretation of the “CE limitation” that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board reached in a previous inter partes review: “A network location, other than a user device, operating under control of a site program to present a character, object, or scene to a user interface.” Treehouse’s infringement expert, Friedman, submitted a report that applied the plain and ordinary meaning for the CE limitation rather than the agreed-upon construction,The district court ruled in favor of Valve, striking every paragraph of Friedman’s report that Valve requested and finding noninfringement because Treehouse failed to offer admissible evidence showing that Valve’s video games operated the CE limitation. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The district court did not abuse its discretion in striking expert testimony that did not rely upon the parties’ own agreed-upon construction, that the court adopted, nor err in finding that Treehouse failed to rebut Valve’s evidence of noninfringement. View "Treehouse Avatar LLC v. Valve Corp." on Justia Law

CUPP’s patents share a common name and priority date and address the problem of malicious attacks aimed at mobile devices. They generally concern systems and methods for waking a mobile device from a power-saving mode and then performing security operations on the device, “such as scanning a storage medium for malware, or updating security applications.” In inter partes review (IPR), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board concluded that the challenged claims in CUPP’s patents were unpatentable as obvious over two prior art references.The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding a claim construction determination involving the limitation concerning a “security system processor,” which appears in every independent claim in the patents. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding that either prior art renders obvious a claimed “security agent” on a mobile device, which “perform[s] security services.” View "CUPP Computing AS v. Trend Micro Inc." on Justia Law

VLSI sued Intel for infringing a patent, directed to “[a] technique for alleviating the problems of defects caused by stress applied to bond pads” of an integrated circuit. The district court construed the term “force region,” which appears in two independent claims, to mean a “region within the integrated circuit in which forces are exerted on the interconnect structure when a die attach is performed.” In the meantime, Intel sought inter partes review (IPR), and proposed the construction of “force region,” consistent with the construction that the district court adopted. The parties disagreed as to the meaning of the term “die attach.” In its Institution Decisions, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board stated that it disagreed with VLSI that the method of performing a “die attach” cannot include the method of wire bonding. In its Final Decision, the Board did not resolve the meaning of “die attach” but construed the term “force region” as “including at least the area directly under the bond pad.” The Board found that the patent specification made clear that the term “force region” was not limited to flip chip bonding, but could include wire bonding and concluded that the challenged claims were unpatentable for obviousness.The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s treatment of the “force region” limitation but held that the Board erred in construing the phrase “used for electrical interconnection” to encompass a metallic structure that is not connected to active circuitry. View "VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corp." on Justia Law

Sleep Number’s patents describe systems and methods that purport to adjust the pressure in an air mattress “in less time and with greater accuracy” than previously known.” In inter partes reviews (IPR), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that some, but not all, of the challenged claims were not unpatentable.The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the Board’s decision permitting Sleep Number to present proposed amended claims that both responded to a ground of unpatentability and made other wording changes unrelated to the IPR proceedings. Each proposed substitute claim included at least one responsive narrowing limitation, so Sleep Number was free to include other amendments, including any addressing perceived 35 U.S.C. 101 and 112 issues. American National challenged the proposed claims and the Board was free to determine whether the proposed claims were unpatentable. The Board did not err in determining that the proposed amended claims were enabled, despite an admitted error in the specification; that error and its correction would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art. The court rejected arguments that the proposed amended claims should have been rejected for allegedly raising an inventorship issue and that the Board inappropriately considered the petitioner’s sales data in its secondary considerations analysis. View "American National Manufacturing Inc. v. Sleep Number Corp." on Justia Law

SoClean, a medical-device company that produces sanitizing devices for CPAP machines, owns the 195 registration for the configuration of replacement filters for its sanitizing devices. SoClean sued its former distributor, Sunset, for patent infringement, and trademark infringement based on that registration. On a motion for a preliminary injunction, the district court concluded that SoClean was likely to succeed on the merits and was entitled to a presumption of irreparable harm. Balancing the equities and weighing the public interest, the court concluded that enjoining all sales of Sunset’s filters would “go[] much further than necessary” to “end any possible statutory violation.” The court crafted a narrow “injunction that prohibits Sunset from engaging in those practices that result in consumer confusion” and enjoined Sunset from marketing its filters “using images of the filter cartridge alone”; “[a]ny image, drawings, or other depictions of Sunset’s filter cartridge used for the purposes of promotion, marketing and/or sales shall prominently display the Sunset brand name in a manner that leaves no reasonable confusion that what is being sold is a Sunset brand filter.”The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the district court afforded too much weight to the presumption of validity and held Sunset to a higher standard of proof than the applicable preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. View "SoClean, Inc. v. Sunset Healthcare Solutions, Inc." on Justia Law

Aire sued Apple for patent infringement in the Western District of Texas in October 2021. In April 2022, Apple moved for transfer to the Northern District of California. Apple submitted a declaration from an Apple finance manager, “to establish certain facts, such as the relevance, role, and locations of witnesses and their teams, as well as the relevance and locations of various categories of documents.” Shortly before the close of venue discovery, Apple sought leave to supplement its motion with additional declarations, offering to make the declarants available for deposition and stating non-opposition to a “reasonable continuance” of the transfer proceedings.The district court granted Apple’s motion, but sua sponte ordered the parties to complete fact discovery on the merits (which it extended for an additional 30 weeks) and go through another six weeks of re-briefing of the motion before it would rule on Apple’s request to transfer. Apple then sought a writ of mandamus. Citing judicial economy, the Federal Circuit vacated the district court’s amended scheduling order and directed the court to postpone fact discovery and other substantive proceedings until after consideration of Apple’s motion for transfer. View "In Re: Apple Inc." on Justia Law