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

The holder of a patent for a device used to heat gas inserted into the abdomen for expansion during laparoscopic procedures obtained summary judgment finding infringement by a similar device. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The district court correctly construed the claim limitation âhaving a temperature within 2°C of the predetermined temperatureâ and properly declined to read in a limitation that the gas must always fall within a 4°C range of the predetermined temperature.

The VA denied the plaintiff's claim for benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from a sexual assault that she claimed occurred in 1984, while she was stationed in Japan. The Veterans Court and Federal Circuit affirmed. The Veterans Court committed harmless error in stating that a medical opinion based on a post-service exam cannot be used to establish the occurrence; the Veterans Board of Appeals detailed its consideration of all of the plaintiff's evidence and determined that the preponderance of the evidence was against a finding of verification of the occurrence.

After a jury found willful patent violation, the district court entered an injunction ordering the defendant to stop making, using, and offering infringing television broadcast receivers (infringement provision) and to disable the DVR functionality in existing receivers (disablement provision). The Federal Circuit remanded, noting that the injunction would be in effect after its decision. The district court found the defendant in contempt. The Federal Circuit vacated in part, first rejecting the "two-step" process for evaluating contempt of patent injunctions. A district court, familiar with underlying parties and issues, has broad discretion in deciding to hold contempt proceedings. The court vacated the holding of contempt of the infringement provision and, in part, the damages awarded for continued infringement and remanded. The defendant's diligence and good faith efforts are not a defense to contempt, but the district court applied the wrong test. Proper analysis requires focus on the differences between the features relied upon to establish infringement and the modified features of the newly accused products. The court affirmed the finding of contempt of the disablement provision and related sanctions, rejecting claims of vagueness and overbreadth.

In 2003 the Department of Commerce, responding to a petition by the domestic wheat industry, found that Canadian wheat had been sold in the United States at less than fair value and issued an anti-dumping order. A North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) binational panel remanded and Commerce found that the dumping had not materially injured the domestic industry. The NAFTA panel affirmed. Revocation of the anti-dumping order stated ârevocation does not affect the liquidation of entries made prior to January 2, 2006â and instructed Customs to liquidate earlier entries at the rate in effect at the time of entry. The Trade Court granted an injunction against liquidation of those duties and held that the Canadian Wheat Board was entitled to return of deposited unliquidated anti-dumping duties. The Federal Circuit affirmed, first holding that the Trade Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1581. The case did not involve unauthorized review of a NAFTA panel decision, but Commerce's implementation of the decision. Characterizing the decision to not return anti-dumping duties as "bizarre and unfair," the court stated that retaining the duties cannot be valid if the underlying order is invalid. Return of the duties does not constitute a retroactive remedy.

The owner of patents for computer modems and methods of identifying modems licensed the patents to Rockwell; a related agreement gave Rockwell sub-licensing rights. Rockwell reorganized and assigned its rights. The patent owner acknowledged the assignment. Defendants obtain modem chips from a "spin off" of the companies formed in the Rockwell reorganization. The patent owner sued for infringement. The district court held that the defendants are licensed and entered summary judgment that certain patents are invalid. The Federal Circuit reversed in part, first holding that the assignment was within Rockwell's sub-licensing rights without further consent. Two patent claims were invalid for indefiniteness, but there was a material issue of fact on whether two others were invalid for failure to disclose necessary algorithms.

In 2000 the applicant obtained a patent for an âalternator pulleyâ that uses a one-way clutch to improve the power generation efficiency of an automobileâs alternator. Two years later, the applicant filed a reissue application to add a single dependent claim, narrower than the entire patent. The application was denied on the ground that the specified error was not subject to correction on reissue because the broadest scope of the patent would remain the same. The Board of Patent Appeals affirmed. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. Section 251, provides for reissue: "Whenever any patent is, through error without any deceptive intention, deemed wholly or partly inoperative or invalid, by reason of a defective specification or drawing, or by reason of the patentee claiming more or less than he had a right to claim in the patent." The section authorizes reissue to add the dependent claim; its omission could render a patent partially inoperative by failing to protect the disclosed invention to the fullest extent permitted by law.

The company claimed based $115 million in deductions for 2002, based on 26 sale-in lease-out (SILO) transactions with tax-exempt entities, including domestic transit agencies. After the IRS denied the deduction, the company paid under protest. The Court of Federal Claims denied a refund. The Federal Circuit affirmed, applying the substance-over-form doctrine. Noting that title is only one indicator of ownership, the court analyzed the economic substance of the transactions, particularly risk and the near-certainty that the entities would exercise repurchase options and retain possession of the assets. The claimed deductions were for depreciation on property (such as buses, rail cars, and telecommunications equipment) that the company never expected to own or operate, interest on debt that existed only on a balance sheet, and write-offs for the costs of transactions that amounted to nothing more than tax deduction arbitrage. The tax-exempt entities were, in essence, paid for allowing the company to use tax advantages that could not be used by those entities.

In 1978 the VA published an Agent Orange Program Guide that was the basis for denial of many claims of service-related injury. While a suit, challenging the Guide as issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), was pending, Congress enacted the 1984 Veteransâ Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act, which rendered the Guide irrelevant to new claims. Plaintiffs continued to pursue their suit and, in 2005, new named plaintiffs were added. In 2008, the district court granted the government's 1979 motion for judgment. The D.C. Circuit first remanded the case for transfer under the 1988 Veterans Judicial Review Act, 38 U.S.C. 502, but, on rehearing, ordered dismissal. The veterans refiled in the Federal Circuit, which dismissed for failure to file within the Act's six-year limitations period. When the claim was filed, no court had jurisdiction to hear APA challenges to VA regulations and the 1988 Act did not retroactively create a cause of action.

McKesson holds a patent on an electronic means of communication between doctors and patients and sued Epic, which licenses software to medical providers, for infringement. The district court entered summary judgment for Epic. The Federal Circuit affirmed. McKesson failed to demonstrate that a single party directly infringes the patent and could not succeed on its claim of indirect infringement. Customers to whom Epic licenses software neither directly perform the âinitiating a communicationâ step nor exercise control or direction over another who performs this step; no single party infringes the entire method claimed by the patent. Expanding the rules governing direct infringement to reach independent conduct of multiple actors would subvert the statutory scheme for indirect infringement.

In 1983 the Department of Energy contracted to dispose of spent nuclear fuel from plaintiff's Columbia, Washington facility. The DOE failed to perform and, with its own temporary storage filling up, the plaintiff began work on its own permanent storage facility in 2002. The trial court award of $56.9 million included amounts for modifications to the temporary storage facility, indirect overhead, and financing costs. The Federal Circuit vacated. The plaintiff was entitled to damages for modifications only to the extent that it could prove that, but for the breach, those costs would not have been incurred; the trial court did not require the plaintiff to prove causation. The trial court properly included an award for indirect overhead calculated to a reasonable certainty. The government was entitled to sovereign immunity (28 U.S.C. 2516) with respect to the award of $6 million in interest; the contract did not waive immunity.