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

The company sells computer networking products, including firewalls, and filed a false marking claim against a "hacker" after the company was charged with infringement in a separate suit. The hacker's website claimed patent on a firewall product, but did not offer the product for sale; the company claims that the actual product was destroyed in a harddrive crash in 1999. The district court dismissed, reasoning that the website had not marked an âunpatented articleâ under 35 U.S.C. 292(a) because the âmarkingâ referred to the project and did not claim that the software was functioning on the site and that, even if the marking could be imputed to the site generally, the hacker had obtained two patents. The court characterized the company's complaint as alleging that the public was misled into believing that the site was running on software that no longer exists. The Federal Circuit affirmed and awarded costs.

The petitioner joined the Air Force in 1979 and, after being denied promotion twice, was discharged from active duty in 1989. The Deputy for Air Force Review Boards eventually agreed to void a substandard officer effectiveness report in her record. After the petitioner's separation from active service, the Special Selection Board reconsidered the record and did not recommend promotion. After several requests, the Air Force reinstated the petitioner to active duty in 1995 and promoted her to major, with a date of rank of 1988. After again being denied promotion twice, she applied for direct promotion in 2002, arguing that one of her evaluations was prepared by an officer she had reported for misconduct and that the break in service deprived her of an opportunity to develop a record to support promotion. Relief was denied. The petitioner was involuntarily retired in 2003. The Court of Claims rejected her suit. The Federal Circuit affirmed, stating that the Corrections Board thoroughly reviewed the claims and that the decision was not arbitrary.

The Department of Veterans Affairs disability rating schedule governs entitlement to compensation based on loss of earning capacity. The Veterans Court held that the petitioner, whose 100% disability rating is based on multiple disabilities, no one of which is rated at 100%, did not qualify under 38 U.S.C. 1114(s), which provides $320 in additional monthly compensation to a veteran with âa service-connected disability rated as totalâ if the veteran either has another independently rated disability or combination of disabilities rated at 60%, or is permanently housebound by reason of service-connected disability. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The use of the singular and plural terms was purposeful and intended to limit payment of the special monthly compensation to a veteran who has at least one condition that has been rated as totally disabling. The court rejected an argument based on a rule that allows the Secretary to rate the veteran as âtotally disabled based on individual unemployabilityâ even if a veteran does not qualify for a rating of 100%.

The district court found a patent for a genetic test for Type I hereditary hemochromatosis invalid and rejected a claim of infringement. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The patent did not satisfy the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112, which requires the inventor to disclose the claimed invention so as to allow persons of ordinary skill in the art to recognize that the inventor invented what is claimed. Given the immaturity of the science at the time of filing, the filing represented a research plan; the requirement cannot be satisfied by later-acquired knowledge. The patent claim was also "anticipated;" every limitation was found either expressly or inherently in a prior application.

Dell manufactures and sells secondary batteries for laptop computers, which may be packaged with new computers, at the option of the customer. The batteries at issue were admitted separately from computers into Dellâs Foreign Trade Sub-Zone (âFTZâ) in Nashville with ânon-privileged foreign status,â meaning that they had not been cleared by Customs and would be appraised for tariff purposes at the time of their formal entry into the United States. Dell proposed to classify secondary batteries that were packaged with computers as duty-free âportable digital automatic data processing [âADPâ] machines,â the ordinary classification for laptop computers. Customs classified the batteries as "other storage batteries," not âgoods put up in sets for retail saleâ with the computers. The Court of International Trade upheld the designation. The Federal Circuit affirmed, noting that the computer and battery may be packaged and shipped to the customer together, but are not packaged as a single unit for retail sale. There is nothing anomalous about classification of an article depending on the manner in which it is combined or associated with other related articles that are imported with it.

After the Board of Veteransâ Appeals denied the veteran's claim for service-connected benefits for a thyroid disorder, the Veterans Court vacated and remanded the case for reconsideration. The veteran sought fees of $11,710.57 for attorney work under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 2412. The district court awarded $8,601.80 and denied a request for supplemental fees for time spent defending the original fee request. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. A veteran is entitled to attorney fees incurred throughout the litigation, including those incurred in preparation and defense of the fee application to the extent those fees are defensible; the veteran was partially successful in defending his original fee application.

The Wellman patents disclose polyethylene terephthalate (âPETâ) resins for use in plastic beverage containers, claim that prior PET resins shrank or grew hazy when hot-filled, and disclose slow-crystallizing PET resins. Wellman claimed indirect infringement by Eastman. The district court found certain Wellman patents invalid. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, holding that five patents are invalid for intentional failure to disclose the best mode of practicing the technology. The court reversed a finding that certain claims were indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112. A claim need only provide a discernible boundary between what is claimed and what is not claimed; in this case, a person of ordinary skill in the art would follow standard industry guidance for conditioning plastics and could understand the bounds.

The U.S. Department of Energy entered into standard contracts to accept spent nuclear fuel from utility companies by January 1998 and has not yet accepted delivery, resulting in suits by several nuclear utilities. The district court awarded Dominion damages. The Federal Circuit affirmed, first holding that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. 10222, permitted assignment by Dominion's predecessor, that the assignment complied with the Act and the contract, and that the assignment included the right to pre-assignment damages. The district court properly denied discovery on the government's claim that Dominion has benefited from its breach because it has not yet been required to pay a one-time fee for disposal of waste generated prior to 1983.

The Tennessee holder of a patent on a pet-access door received communications from a New Jersey company concerning cooperative marketing of a portable pet-access door, but did not respond until the New Jersey company indicated that it had obtained patent 141. The companies negotiated; the owner of the New Jersey company traveled to Tennessee to demonstrate the product and the parties signed a non-disclosure agreement, with a provision identifying Tennessee as the forum of any litigation. When the Tennessee company sought a patent on a similar item, the New Jersey company claimed infringement. The Tennessee district court dismissed an action seeking a declaration of noninfringement and of invalidity of patent 141. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over the New Jersey defendant. Only activities of the patentee relating to enforcement or defense of the patent, not actions relating to commercialization, give rise to personal jurisdiction in a declaratory judgment action. The New Jersey company's efforts to interest the Tennessee company in its product were insufficient to vest jurisdiction; the New Jersey company's only activities relating to enforcement consisted of correspondence. The suit did not arise from the non-disclosure agreement.

A 1935 settlement gives the tribe specific irrigation rights in the Gila River. The government filed another water rights claim on behalf of the tribe in 1979, resulting in a 2006 Arizona Supreme Court decree that the 1935 decree resolved all of the tribe's rights under all theories and that federal court was the proper forum for interpretation and enforcement of that decree. The Court of Federal Claims dismissed a claim against the United States for failure to secure and protect the tribe's water rights. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding the claim barred by the six-year limitations period in 28 U.S.C. 2501. Rejecting an argument that the tribe was not on notice of its harm until the 2006 decision, the court stated that the plain terms of the 1935 decree indicated that the tribe would have no further rights and that the government was representing multiple parties.