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

The Court of Federal Claims enjoined the U.S. Army from proceeding with, or awarding, a contract to Airbus Helicopter, finding that Army Execution Order 109-14, which implemented the Army’s Aviation Restructure Initiative designating the UH-72A Lakota helicopter as the Army’s “Institutional Training Helicopter,” was a procurement decision in violation of the Competition in Contracting Act and the Federal Acquisition Regulation. The court also found the Sole Source Justification and Approval (J&A) was arbitrary and capricious. The Federal Circuit reversed and vacated the injunction, holding that Execution Order 109-14 was not a procurement decision subject to Tucker Act review because it did not begin “the process for determining a need for property or services.” The Order simply formalized the Army’s decision designating the UH-72A Lakota as the Army’s training helicopter. The Sole Source J&A was not arbitrary and capricious, and it was an abuse of discretion to supplement the administrative record. The J&A sufficiently supports the Army’s decision to award a sole-source follow-on contract because it is likely that award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the government that is not expected to be recovered through competition, or unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements.” View "AgustaWestland North America v. United States" on Justia Law

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in an ex parte reexamination of Janssen’s 471 patent, affirmed the rejection of claims 1–7 as unpatentable under the doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting, which is intended to prevent the extension of the term of a patent by prohibiting the issuance of the claims of a second patent that are not patentably distinct from the claims of the first patent. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting Janssen’s argument that obviousness-type double patenting is not applicable under the safe-harbor provision of 35 U.S.C. 121. The safe harbor, “protects only divisional applications (or the original application) and patents issued on such applications.” A patent owner cannot retroactively bring its challenged patent within the scope of the safe-harbor provision by amendment in a reexamination proceeding. Once the 471 patent issued on the 093 application, which, at the time of issuance included new matter not disclosed in the original application and so was a properly designated a continuation-in-part, the 471 patent was barred from safe-harbor protections. Janssen cannot establish that the PTO is “solely responsible” for any alleged delay associated with the 471 claims, so the two-way test for double patenting does not apply. View "In re: Janssen Biotech, Inc." on Justia Law

A U.S. Department of Commerce regulation states: “The Secretary will rescind an administrative review ... if a party that requested a review withdraws the request within 90 days of the date of publication of notice ... The Secretary may extend this time limit if the Secretary decides that it is reasonable to do so,” 19 C.F.R. 351.213(d)(1). In 2011, Commerce announced in a published guidance document that parties seeking untimely withdrawals would no longer be able to get an extension based on what might be reasonable under the circumstances in light of the concerns previously identified and employed by Commerce, but would have to demonstrate the existence of an “extraordinary circumstance.” Commerce applied the 2011 guidance in the Glycine case. The Court of International Trade remanded, invalidating the change in methodology. Commerce, under protest, extended the deadline for Glycine to withdraw its request for administrative review of an antidumping order and rescinded the review. The Trade Court and Federal Circuit affirmed. Since the 2011 Notice was intended to effectively rewrite the substantive meaning of the regulation without going through the necessary notice-and-comment rulemaking, it has no legal standing. The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 551, does not permit amendment of an agency regulation, previously adopted by formal notice-and-comment rulemaking procedure, by a guidance document that is not so enacted. View "Glycine & More, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

SolarWorld sought imposition of antidumping duties under 19 U.S.C. 1673–1673h and countervailing duties under 19 U.S.C. 1671– 1671h on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, modules, laminates, and panels (CSPV products) imported from China. The U.S. Department of Commerce agreed that the subject imports were being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value and were being unfairly subsidized by the Chinese government. The International Trade Commission determined that a U.S. industry was materially injured by reason of imports of the CSPV products from China. The Court of International Trade rejected an argument that the Commission had not properly found the required causal connection between the unfairly priced or subsidized imports and the weakened state of the domestic industry and sustained the Commission’s determination. The Federal Circuit affirmed. In substance, the Commission made a determination of “but-for causation” and had an adequate basis for doing so. The determination rested on detailed findings about demand conditions and the domestic market's business cycle, the roles of conventional and renewable sources of electricity, government incentives and regulations at all levels, domestic consumption trends, market segments, who was supplying the domestic market, what happened to prices and market shares during the period of investigation, and the ways in which the domestic industry’s financial performance was very poor and deteriorating. View "Changzhou Trina Solar Energy Co., Ltd. v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

Flexuspine sued Globus for infringement. Globus asserted noninfringement and invalidity. After Inter Partes Review and claim construction, the court dismissed several claims and counterclaims and granted Globus summary judgment of noninfringement with respect to one patent. Before trial, Flexuspine submitted a proposed verdict form including a “stop instruction” that conditioned the submission of invalidity on an affirmative finding of infringement. The court's intended final jury instructions and final verdict form adopted Flexuspine’s proposed form, with the stop instruction. During a formal charge conference, the court reviewed the final instructions. Neither party objected to a question concerning invalidity or the stop instruction. The court specifically inquired as to the propriety of the instruction. After the jury returned a verdict, the court determined that the jury had not filled out the verdict form correctly. The jury answered “no” to Question 1 regarding infringement but did not heed the stop instruction and continued, indicating the claims were invalid and submitting “0” for the damages. Neither party objected to sending the jury back to re-execute the form. The second verdict found the claims not infringed and left the other questions unanswered. Globus then lodged its first formal objection. The Federal Circuit affirmed that Globus did not infringe without addressing invalidity; denial of Globus’s Rule 59(e) motion requesting that the judgment include the jury’s invalidity verdict; and dismissal of Globus’s invalidity counterclaims without prejudice. View "Flexuspine, Inc. v. Gobus Medical, Inc." on Justia Law

Securiforce entered into a requirements contract with the government to deliver fuel to eight sites in Iraq. The government terminated the contract for convenience with respect to two sites because Securiforce intended to supply fuel from Kuwait, reasoning that delivery to those sites would violate the Trade Agreements Act, 19 U.S.C. 2501, and that obtaining a waiver would take too long. Weeks later, the government ordered small deliveries to two sites, to occur by October 24. Securiforce indicated that it could not deliver until November. The government notified Securiforce that it should offer justifiable excuses or risk termination. Securiforce responded that the late deliveries were excused by improper termination for convenience, failure to provide required security escorts, small orders, and other alleged irregularities. The government terminated the contract for default. Securiforce filed suit (Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1491; Contract Disputes Act, 41 U.S.C. 7101-09). The Claims Court found that it had jurisdiction to review both terminations; that the Contracting Officer abused her discretion in partially terminating the contract for convenience; and that the termination for default was proper. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part. The court lacked jurisdiction over the termination for convenience; a contractor’s request for a declaratory judgment that the government materially breached a contract violates the rule that courts will not grant equitable relief when money damages are adequate. The government did not breach the contract by terminating for convenience or with respect to providing security. View "Securiforce International America, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

Exmark sued Briggs & Stratton for infringement of a patent directed to a lawn mower having improved flow control baffles. .The court entered summary judgment that claim 1 was not invalid because the claim survived multiple reexaminations involving the same prior art and denied summary judgment of indefiniteness with respect to claim 1. A jury found that Briggs willfully infringed and awarded $24,280,330 in compensatory damages, which the court doubled as enhanced damages for willful infringement. The Federal Circuit vacated in part. The district court erred by determining invalidity solely on the fact that claim 1 survived multiple reexaminations; erred in denying a new trial on damages because Exmark’s damages expert failed to provide an adequate explanation for a 5% royalty rate for the patented feature relative to other conventional features of the accused products; and abused its discretion by limiting the evidence relevant to damages to prior art that had been commercialized, The district court's willfulness ruling did not comport with the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Halo Electronics, mandating that willfulness is to be determined by the jury regardless of whether Briggs’ defenses were objectively reasonable. The Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of summary judgment that claim 1 is indefinite and denial of Briggs’ laches defense. View "Exmark Manufacturing Co., Inc. v. Briggs & Stratton Power Group, LLC" on Justia Law

The patent, entitled “Full Duplex Single Clip Video Codec” lists co-inventors, Woo, Li, and Hsiun, and was created while they were Infochips employees. Infochips’ “receivables,” pledged as security, were seized by LM when Infochips went out of business in 1993; in 1995, LM sold Infochips’s assets to Woo. Woo assigned his interest in the patent to AVC. In 1995, AVC filed the patent's parent application. Woo and Li assigned their interests to AVC. Hsiun refused to do so. The PTO permitted AVC to prosecute the application without that assignment. AVC claimed that it obtained Hsiun’s interests by Hsiun's 1992 Employment Agreement with Infochips. The patent was issued to AVC, which later dissolved, after purporting to transfer its assets to its successors (Advanced Video). In 2011, Advanced Video filed patent infringement lawsuits. The district court found that AVC had not complied with Delaware statutes governing dissolved corporations and that no patent rights had transferred to Advanced Video. The cases were dismissed. The state court appointed a Receiver to transfer AVC's patent rights to Advanced Video. After the transfer, Advanced Video filed new infringement lawsuits, arguing that its acquisition of Hsiun’s interest was effected by the Employment Agreement’s “will assign,” trust and quitclaim provisions. The court rejected the argument and, because Hsiun was not a party to the suit, dismissed for lack of standing. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Hsiun never actually assigned her rights, despite her promises to do so. View "Advanced Video Technologies, LLC v. HTC Corp." on Justia Law

Finjan sued Blue Coat for infringement of patents directed to identifying and protecting against malware. Certain claims recite a system and method for providing computer security by attaching a security profile to a downloadable; others recite a system and method for providing computer security at a network gateway by comparing security profiles associated with requested files to the security policies of requesting users. Others recite a “policy-based cache manager” that indicates the allowability of cached files under a plurality of user security policies and relate to a system and method for using “mobile code runtime monitoring” to protect against malicious downloadables. A jury awarded Finjan $39.5 million for infringement, including $24 million for the 844 patent. The court concluded that the 844 patent is directed to patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, upholding the subject matter eligibility determination as to the 844 patent and the jury’s finding of infringement of the 844 and 731 patents. Blue Coat was entitled to judgment of noninfringement for the 968 patent because the accused products do not perform the claimed “policy index” limitation. With respect to damages, the court affirmed the award for the 731 and 633 patents, vacated the award for the 968 patent, and, as to the 844 patent, agreed with Blue Coat that Finjan failed to apportion damages to the infringing functionality. View "Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

The Directors of the Office of Compliance affirmed a finding that the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) engaged in unfair labor practices when it issued Officer Konczos a Command Discipline Warning in response to Konczos’s protected union activity, 5 U.S.C. 7102. Konczos had expressed dissatisfaction with the USCP policy of requiring officers to work a double-shift when the need arises, sometimes informing an officer about the extra shift only at the last minute. The Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Fraternal Order of Police and the USCP permits the USCP to require officers on the current tour to be held over for a subsequent tour. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The parties did not dispute that Konczos engaged in protected activity when he raised the issue during regularly scheduled labor-management meetings and when he reiterated his concerns in an email to the police chief; the court rejected USCP’s argument, that the portion of Konczos’s email protesting his own personal holdover did not constitute a protected activity. Substantial evidence supported findings that Konczos made a prima facie case of discrimination and that USCP’s stated justifications were pretextual. View "United States Capitol Police v. Office of Compliance" on Justia Law