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

Intuitive’s 447 patent relates to robotic surgery systems and describes an improvement over Intuitive’s earlier robotic surgery systems, which allow surgeons to remotely manipulate surgical tools using a controller. The invention embodied by the patent attempts to address difficulties in swapping tools via a robotic system with a servo-pulley mechanism, which allows clinicians to more quickly swap out surgical instruments and thereby reduce surgery time, improve safety, and increase the reliability of the system. Following inter partes review of all five claims of the patent, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that Auris failed to demonstrate that the claims were unpatentable as obvious. Although the Board agreed with Auris that its combination of two references disclosed every limitation of the challenged claims, the Board concluded that a skilled artisan would not have been motivated to combine those references. The Federal Circuit vacated. The Board impermissibly rested its motivation-to-combine finding on evidence of general skepticism about the field of invention. The Board recited Auris’s evidence that combining prior art would reduce the number of assistants but also Intuitive’s evidence that such a combination would come at the expense of precision required for surgery. View "Auris Health, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc." on Justia Law

Zipit, a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business in South Carolina, and with all of its employees in South Carolina, is the assignee of the patents-in-suit, which are generally directed to wireless instant messaging devices that use Wi-Fi. In 2013, Zipit contacted Apple in California. For three years, the parties exchanged correspondence and met in person at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. Zipit filed a patent infringement action against Apple in Georgia but later dismissed the case without prejudice.Apple sought a declaratory judgment of noninfringement in the Northern District of California. The district court dismissed, holding that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction over Zipit (general jurisdiction was not asserted). The court concluded that Apple had established the requisite minimum contacts but that “the exercise of personal jurisdiction . . . would be unconstitutional when ‘[a]ll of the contacts were for the purpose of warning against infringement or negotiating license agreements, and [the defendant] lacked a binding obligation in the forum.’” The Federal Circuit reversed, Zipit is subject to specific personal jurisdiction in the Northern District of California for purposes of Apple’s declaratory judgment action. Zipit has not presented a compelling case that the relevant factors in the aggregate would render the exercise of jurisdiction unreasonable. View "Apple, Inc. v. Zipit Wireless, Inc." on Justia Law

Congestive heart failure can be treated by resynchronization therapy, using electrical pacing leads to help keep the two sides of the heart contracting with regularity and in sync. According to Niazi's 268 patent, physicians previously accomplished resynchronization by inserting a catheter into the coronary sinus and its branch veins to place pacing leads on the hearts of patients; it can be “difficult to pass a lead” into the coronary sinus and its branch veins using a catheter. The 268 patent describes a double catheter, comprising an outer and inner catheter, for cannulating the coronary sinus “without significant manipulation.” Niazi sued for patent infringement, accusing combinations of St. Jude’s products of directly infringing the 268 patent and accusing St. Jude of inducing infringement.The Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s determination that all but one of the asserted patent claims are invalid as indefinite; when read in light of the intrinsic evidence, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand the scope of the claims with reasonable certainty. Niazi failed to prove direct infringement—a necessary element of Niazi’s inducement claim. The court affirmed the entry of monetary sanctions and the exclusion of portions of Niazi’s technical expert and damages expert reports because Niazi failed to disclose predicate facts during discovery. The court upheld the exclusion of portions of Niazi’s damages expert report as unreliable. View "Niazi Licensing Corp. v. St. Jude Medical S.C., Inc." on Justia Law

BioVeris, a Roche entity, owns the patents, which concern immunoassays that exploit electrochemiluminescence (ECL). Meso maintains that a prior owner, IGEN, granted it exclusive rights to the patent claims it now asserts against Roche (which sells instruments and reagent packs for performing ECL immunoassays). Meso sued Roche in the Delaware Court of Chancery in 2010, alleging that Roche breached its 2003 license with IGEN by violating a field restriction. The chancery court determined that Meso was not a party to the 2003 license agreement, such that only BioVeris (IGEN’s successor-in-interest) could enforce the field restriction.In 2017, Roche sought a federal court declaratory judgment that it does not infringe Meso’s rights arising from a 1995 joint venture license agreement. Meso counterclaimed for patent infringement. A jury found that Meso holds an exclusive license to the asserted patent claims, that Roche directly infringed one claim and induced infringement of three claims in other patents, and that Roche’s infringement was willful. It awarded Meso $137,250,000 in damages. The court granted Roche judgment as a matter of law on willfulness, denied Meso’s motions to enhance damages, and rendered a noninfringement judgment with respect to three additional patents on the ground that Meso waived compulsory infringement counterclaims. The Federal Circuit affirmed on direct infringement, reversed on induced infringement, vacated the damages award, remanded for a new trial on damages, and vacated the judgment of noninfringement with respect to three additional patents. View "Roche Diagnostics Corp. v. Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC" on Justia Law

Littelfuse alleged that Mersen infringed its patent, which is directed to a “fuse end cap for providing an electrical connection between a fuse and an electrical conductor.” After the district court construed the patent claims, the parties stipulated to a judgment of non-infringement.The Federal Circuit vacated the judgment and the district court’s constructions of “fastening stem” and “a fastening stem that extends from the mounting cuff and into the second cavity of the terminal that receives the conductor.” On remand, the district court should adjust the construction of those claim terms so as to allow for the independent claims to cover both single-piece and multi-piece embodiments, but the court’s constructions should continue to give meaning to the terms “fastening” and “stem” in the context of the invention and the ordinary meaning of those terms. View "Littelfuse, Inc. v. Mersen USA EP Corp." on Justia Law

Genuine Enabling’s patent, titled “Method and Apparatus for Producing a Combined Data Stream and Recovering Therefrom the Respective User Input Stream and at Least One Additional Input Signal,” discloses the technology for combining data streams that the inventor, Nguyen, conceived when developing a “voice mouse” that conserved computer resources. Genuine sued Nintendo, accusing infringement by the Wii Remote and Wii Remote Plus, the Nunchuk, the WiiU GamePad, the Switch Joy-Con Controller, and the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller..The district court construed the term “input signal,” which appears in all the asserted claims, consistent with the defendants’ proposed construction, and granted the defendants summary judgment of noninfringement.The Federal Circuit reversed. The district court erred in its construction of “input signal.” The Federal Circuit construed the term to mean “a signal having an audio or higher frequency.” Nguyen disclaimed subject matter other than signals below the audio frequency spectrum during prosecution, and the district court further erred in relying on extrinsic evidence to limit the claim scope to signals above 500 Hz. View "Genuine Enabling Technology LLC v. Nintendo Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

The patents-in-suit, titled “System for Location-Based Triggers for Mobile Devices,” describe improved systems for delivering messages to users based on their locations. The shared specification discloses a communications system that provides users with information tailored to their particular interests or needs based on their presence within a specified location, such as a shopping center that has different retail stores within it. The district court held the claims invalid as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112 based on its view that certain claim limitations are in means-plus-function format and that the specification does not disclose sufficient structure corresponding to the recited functions.The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the “code”/“application” limitations are not written in means-plus-function format because they would have connoted sufficiently definite structure to persons of ordinary skill in the art. View "Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp." on Justia Law

DynaEnergetics’s patent is directed to a perforating gun used in an oil wellbore to penetrate the well lining and surrounding rock formation in order to provide a flow path for oil into the wellbore from the surrounding rock formation. Titan petitioned for inter partes review of claims 1–15, asserting unpatentability based on anticipation and obviousness. The Board found all of the original claims unpatentable. DynaEnergetics moved to amend the patent to add proposed substitute claims 16–22. Titan opposed the motion, advancing only obviousness grounds. Although Titan did not assert that prior art (Schacherer) anticipated the proposed substitute claims, the Board determined that the original and proposed substitute claims alike were unpatentable as anticipated by Schacherer.The Federal Circuit Precedential Opinion Panel concluded that Titan had not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that proposed substitute claims 16–22 are unpatentable and granted the motion to amend the patent to add the proposed substitute claims. The Federal Circuit subsequently affirmed. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that Schacherer anticipates all of the patent’s original claims. The court rejected Titan’s challenge to the Panel’s decision to vacate the Board’s denial of the motion to amend and argument that the Board has a duty to determine the patentability of the proposed substitute claims based on the entirety of the record. View "Hunting Titan, Inc. v, DynaEnergetics Europe GmbH" on Justia Law

CSIRO, a research arm of the Australian government, owns six U.S. patents, concerning the engineering of plants, particularly canola, to produce specified oils not native to the plants. After the resolution of jurisdiction and venue issues in an infringement case against BASF and Cargill, the case proceeded to trial on eight claims of the six patents. The parties stipulated to infringement of five patents; the jury found infringement of the sixth. The jury rejected invalidity challenges, including the challenge that the asserted patent claims lacked adequate written-description support. The jury found that BASF co-owned one patent (precluding infringement of that patent) but not the others. The district court ruled that the evidence would not support a finding of willfulness, denied a conduct-stopping injunction, and granted an ongoing royalty on all five patents found infringed.The Federal Circuit affirmed that Eastern District of Virginia venue was proper and affirmed the verdict rejecting the written-description challenge to the claims that are limited to canola plants but reversed as to the broader genus claims. The court agreed that five patents were not co-owned by BASF but reversed the contrary verdict as to the sixth, so that infringement of all valid claims of the six patents is now settled. The court upheld the district court’s refusal to submit willfulness to the jury and its decision on an evidentiary issue concerning past damages but remanded for reconsideration of the remedy. View "BASF Plant Science, LP v. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation" on Justia Law

Almirall’s patent relates to methods of treating acne or rosacea with dapsone formulations that include an acrylamide/sodium acryloyldimethyl taurate copolymer (A/SA) thickening agent and the solvent diethylene glycol monoethyl ether (DGME), which allows compositions to be prepared with increased solubilized concentrations of dapsone. A polymeric viscosity builder such as an A/SA, can minimize the yellowing of the composition and can reduce the particle size, and minimize a gritty feel upon application. The Almirral patent includes 62 generalized composition embodiments and eight specific example formulations.On inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board agreed that claims 1–8 would have been obvious over prior art at the time the alleged invention was made. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Board’s decision sets forth factual findings of similarity between carbomers and A/SA agents that support its conclusion that prior art discloses a range for each component of the composition that either fully encompasses or overlaps/abuts the ranges and amounts for those components recited in the challenged claims, sufficient to create a presumption of obviousness. The court upheld the Board’s analysis of whether a skilled artisan would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining prior art teachings to achieve the claimed invention. View "Almirall, LLC v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals, LLC" on Justia Law