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

The Capitol Police and the Union were negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. The Police notified the Union of planned changes to its personnel policies. The Union responded with its own proposals. The Police declined to negotiate some proposals. The Compliance Board ruled for the Police as to some proposals but for the Union as to others and ordered the Police to bargain with the Union. In related cases, the Federal Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction over the Police’s petitions for direct review of the negotiability decisions but that it had jurisdiction over the Office of Compliance petitions to enforce those decisions. In ruling on the enforcement petitions, the court reviewed the underlying negotiability decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 706, default standard of review. In this decision, the court held that whether the Board refers a negotiability petition to a hearing officer is a matter for the Board's discretion, not a matter of statutory compulsion, and that the opportunity for such a referral may be lost if not timely requested. The court separately dismissed the Police’s petitions for direct review of the negotiability decisions regarding 12 specific proposals; held that it has jurisdiction over the enforcement action under 2 U.S.C. 1407(a)(2); granted the petition for enforcement with respect to five proposals while denying the petition with respect to six proposals; and set aside the order with respect to one proposal, remanding for determination of whether that proposal involves a change in conditions of employment. View "Office of Compliance v. United States Capitol Police" on Justia Law

The patents at issue are directed to a broadcast technique in which a broadcast channel overlays a point-to-point communications network. The communications network consists of a graph of point-to-point connections between host computers or “nodes,” through which the broadcast channel is implemented. Blizzard filed six inter partes review (IPR) petitions regarding the three patents based principally on two different prior art references: one set of IPRs challenged claims based on the Shoubridge article 2 alone or combined with a prior art book DirectPlay3 and another set of IPRs challenged claims based on the Lin article 4 alone or combined with DirectPlay. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board held that multiple claims were unpatentable but upheld others and held that the Lin article is not a printed publication under 35 U.S.C. 102(a). The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that the Board erred by construing the term “participant” according to its plain meaning; that the terms “game environment” and “information delivery service,” appearing in two patents should have been given patentable weight; and that the Board failed to identify a broadcast channel in Shoubridge in its anticipation and obviousness analyses. The Board’s finding that Lin was not publicly accessible before the critical date was supported by substantial evidence. View "Acceleration Bay, LLC v. Activision Blizzard Inc." on Justia Law

K-Con and the Army entered into two contracts for pre-engineered metal buildings. K-Con claims that the Army subsequently delayed issuance of a notice to proceed for two years, resulting in $116,336.56 in increases in costs and labor. According to K-Con, this delay was due solely to the government’s decision to add to each contract the performance and payment bonds set forth in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.228-15. The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals held that bonding requirements were included in the contracts by operation of law when they were awarded, pursuant to the Christian doctrine. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The two contracts are construction contracts and, under the Christian doctrine, the standard bond requirements in construction contracts were incorporated into K-Con’s contracts by operation of law. If the contracts had been issued using the standard construction contract form, there would have been no issue, but these contracts issued using the standard commercial items contract form. There were, however, many indications that the contracts were for construction, not commercial items. The statement of work included many construction-related tasks, including developing and submitting construction plans, obtaining construction permits, and cleaning up construction areas. The statement of work also required compliance with FAR regulations relevant only to construction contracts. View "K-Con, Inc. v. Secretary of the Army" on Justia Law

Garcia served in the Army from 1952-1954. The military’s records of his medical treatment during service were among those destroyed in a fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. The record of his medical examination upon leaving the service was not destroyed and reveals a normal psychiatric state and no severe illnesses or injuries. Garcia saw Dr. Smoker, in 1965 for a burn from a welding accident. In 1969, Dr. Smoker diagnosed Garcia with, and prescribed medication for, paranoid schizophrenia. In 2002, Garcia sought disability benefit, alleging service connection of disability-causing paranoid schizophrenia. The regional office denied the claim. The Board of Veterans’ Appeals remanded for a VA psychiatric examination. Although García claimed to have been seen twice for his condition while in service, a VA examiner found it “impossible to say, without resorting to mere speculation, as to whether this veteran’s schizophrenia, paranoid type actually started in Service, without more documentation and records.” The previous denial was “confirmed.” Garcia collaterally challenged the 2006 Board decision, alleging clear and unmistakable error (CUE). The Board and Veterans Court rejected Garcia’s CUE arguments. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the Veterans Court’s application of 38 C.F.R. 20.1409(c) to bar a due process allegation of CUE. View "García v. WIlkie" on Justia Law

Sunoco blends ethanol with gasoline to create alcohol fuel mixtures. Sunoco filed consolidated tax returns, 2004-2009, claiming the Mixture Credit under 26 U.S.C. 6426 as a credit against its gasoline excise tax liability for the years 2005-2008. In 2013, Sunoco changed its tax position by submitting both informal and formal claims with the IRS to recover over $300 million based on excise-tax expenses for the years 2005-2008, claiming that it erroneously reduced its gasoline excise tax by the amount of Mixture Credit it received, which had the effect of including the Mixture Credit in its gross income. In its view, Sunoco was entitled to deduct the full amount of the gasoline excise tax under section 4081— without regard to the Mixture Credit—and keep the Mixture Credit as tax-free income. In 2015, the IRS issued a statutory notice of disallowance denying Sunoco’s claims. Sunoco filed a refund suit. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Claims Court in upholding the disallowance. The alcohol fuel mixture credit must first be applied to reduce a taxpayer’s gasoline excise-tax liability, with any remaining credit amount treated as a tax-free payment. View "Sunoco, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, retired or separated from their VA positions in 1993-1999, with accrued but unused leave. The Lump Sum Pay Act (LSPA), 5 U.S.C. 5551-5552, provides that an employee “who is separated from the service . . . is entitled to receive a lump-sum payment for accumulated and current accrued annual or vacation leave” equal to the pay the employee would have received had he remained in federal service until the expiration of the period of annual or vacation leave. Plaintiffs received lump-sum payments for their accrued and unused annual leave and later received supplemental lump-sum payments that reflected statutory pay increases and general system-wide pay increases that became effective before the expiration of their accrued annual leave. Plaintiffs sued, alleging that the VA omitted increases included Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) and Locality Pay Adjustments and that payments made to certain plaintiffs improperly omitted non-overtime Sunday premium pay or evening and weekend “additional pay” that they would have received had they remained in federal service. They sought pre-judgment interest under the Back Pay Act, 5 U.S.C. 5596. The claims for additional COLAs, Locality Pay Adjustments, and non-overtime Sunday premium pay were resolved. The Claims Court held, and the Federal Circuit affirmed, that, as members of the class, plaintiffs were not entitled to have evening and weekend “additional pay” included in their payments. They were not entitled to receive pre-judgment interest on amounts improperly withheld from their payments. View "Athey v. United States" on Justia Law

The 753 trademark, issued to Converse in 2013, describes the trade-dress configuration of three design elements on the midsole of Converse’s All Star shoes. Converse filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging violations of 19 U.S.C. 337 by various companies in the importation into the U.S., the sale for importation, and the sale within the U.S. after importation of shoes that infringe its trademark. The ITC found the registered mark invalid and that Converse could not establish the existence of common-law trademark rights, but nonetheless stated that various accused products would have infringed Converse’s mark if valid. The Federal Circuit vacated. The ITC erred in failing to distinguish between alleged infringers who began infringing before Converse obtained its trademark registration and those who began afterward. With respect to the pre-registration period, Converse, as the party asserting trade-dress protection, must establish that its mark had acquired secondary meaning before the first infringing use by each alleged infringer. In addition, the ITC applied the wrong legal standard in its determination of secondary meaning. On remand, the ITC should reassess the accused products to determine whether they are substantially similar to the mark in the infringement analysis. View "Converse, Inc. v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

At issue were legal questions concerning the meaning of a regulation and the scope of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals’ remedial obligations under U.S. Code Title 38 and the Federal Circuit’s previous decision in Pirkl v. Shinseki, 718 F.3d 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (Pirkl I).This case centered on clear and unmistakable (CUE) error in a disability decision from long ago. After Pirkl I was decided, the Board on remand dismissed Appellant’s appeal of a decision not to give relief for a 1953 CUE past the effective date of a 1956 rating reduction. The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirmed. The Federal Circuit vacated the Veterans Court’s decision and remanded the case after addressing the remedy required for a CUE error in a disability rating decision, holding that the Veterans Court mistakenly interpreted a key regulation and took too narrow a view of the legally required corrective remedy for the rating decision error. View "Pirkl v. Wilkie" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was the relative priority of statutes and regulations governing the procurement process for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).The Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the United States Court of Federal Claims concluding that section 502 of the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-461, 120 Stat. 30403, 3431-35 (VBA), requires the VA to consider awarding contracts for prescription eyewear based on competition restricted to veteran-owned small businesses before procuring this eyewear from any other source, including any nonprofit agency for the blind or significantly disabled designated as such under that Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act, 41 U.S.C. 8504.After considering the plain language of the VBA, as well as the legislative history and Congress’s intention in enacting it, the Federal Circuit held (1) the Claims Court properly exercised subject-matter jurisdiction over this action; and (2) the Claims Court did not err in its substantive legal analysis, and the VA is required to undertake the “rule of two” analysis as required under the VBA - even when goods and services are on the list. View "PDS Consultants, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

The Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the United States District Court of the District of Delaware invalidating all asserted claims of patents directed to COPAXONE® 40mg/mL, holding that the district court correctly held that the asserted claims were invalid as obvious under 35 U.S.C. 103.The patents at issue, collectively referred to as the “Copaxone patents,” shared a common specification and claim priority to the same two provision applications. The Copaxone patents described and claimed COPAXONE® 40 mg/mL, a product marketed for treatment of patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis. This appeal arose out of five consolidated district court cases. Appellants sued Appellees, general drug manufacturers who sought to engage in the manufacture and sale of generic versions of COPAXONE® 40 mg, three times a week dosage, alleging that Appellees’ respective Abbreviated New Drug Applications infringed claims of the subject patents. The district court held all asserted claims of the Copaxone patents invalid as obvious under section 103. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in invalidating all asserted claims of the Copaxone patents as obvious. View "Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz Inc." on Justia Law