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

Johnson served in the Army, 1970-1971. In 2008, the VA granted Johnson a 30% rating for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a 10% rating for tinea corporis, a skin condition which Johnson described as jungle rot under Diagnostic Code (DC) 7806. The Board of Veterans Appeals increased his PTSD rating to 70% and remanded with respect to his skin condition. After several rounds of review, the Board denied Johnson’s request for an increased rating for tinea corporis in 2014, finding that Johnson’s skin condition affected only a limited area of his body, and his topical corticosteroid treatment of that area did not qualify as a “systemic therapy” under DC 7806. The Veterans Court held that DC 7806 unambiguously defines a topical corticosteroid treatment as “systemic therapy” rather than “topical therapy.” The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the Veterans Court gave an overly broad reading of the term “systemic therapy” in DC 7806 that encompasses any and all forms of topical corticosteroid treatment. The court noted that Johnson did not challenge factual findings that his use of topical corticosteroids affected only the area to which he applied treatment and did not affect his body as a whole, and reinstated the Board’s findings. View "Johnson v. Shulkin" on Justia Law

The U.S. Department of Commerce issued final results in the eighth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain frozen warm water shrimp from India. Using the “average-to-transaction” methodology with zeroing, Commerce assessed one mandatory respondent with a 1.97 percent duty for entries during a period in 2012. Using a “mixed alternative” methodology, which blends both the average-to-transaction and average-to-average methodologies, Commerce assessed the second mandatory respondent with a 3.01 percent duty for the same time period. Non-mandatory respondents were assessed with a simple-averaged antidumping duty of 2.49 percent. Exporters subject to Commerce’s antidumping duties on frozen warm water shrimp from India challenged the methodology used to calculate the antidumping duties on a number of grounds related to Commerce’s decision to use the average-to-transaction methodology and zeroing. The Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit affirmed Commerce’s choices of methodologies as a reasonable exercise of its delegated authority, entitled to deference. Commerce provided rationales in support of its analysis and chose the methodology that reasonably achieves the overarching statutory aim of addressing targeted or masked dumping. View "Apex Frozen Foods Private Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

Genband sells products and services that help telecommunications companies offer voice communications services over Internet Protocol networks (VoIP services) and owns patents related to its offerings. Metaswitch sells telecommunications products and services that compete with Genband’s offerings but was not a major competitor until recent years. After a jury found that Metaswitch infringed various claims of several of Genband’s patents and that those claims had not been proven invalid, Genband sought a permanent injunction. The district court denied the request, concluding that Genband had not established irreparable harm from the infringing activities by alleging that Metaswitch made competing sales. The court indicated that Genband was required to prove that “the patented features drive demand for the product.” The Federal Circuit vacated, reasoning that the district court may have relied on too stringent an interpretation of the requirement, for an injunction, that the allegedly irreparable harm is being caused by the infringement. The court stated that it could not be confident of the answer to the causation question under the standard properly governing the inquiry or whether there is any independent ground for finding no irreparable harm or otherwise denying an injunction. View "Genband US LLC v. Metaswitch Networks Corp." on Justia Law

IPCom’s 830 patent describes and claims a method and system for handing over a mobile phone call from one base station to another base station. After IPCom sued HTC for infringement, HTC successfully requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office conduct inter partes reexamination of claims 1, 5–26, and 28–37. In the first round, the Examiner concluded that the claims were patentable, but the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a new ground of rejection for claims 1 and 5–30. In the second round, IPCom amended claims 1, 5–26, and 28–37, but the Board found that these amended claims were obvious under 35 U.S.C. 103 in view of various combinations of prior art. The Federal Circuit concluded, under the circumstances of this case, the Board properly had the authority to consider the patentability of claims 31–37. In its first decision, the Board did not address whether claims 31–37 should be regarded as obvious, but those claims were amended after the first round. The court agreed with IPCom that the Board failed to conduct a proper claim construction of the “arrangement for reactivating the link” claim limitation and vacated the obviousness rejections based on that limitation. View "IPCom GmbH & Co. v. HTC Corp." on Justia Law

AdjustaCam’s patent, which issued in 1999, discloses a camera clip that supports a camera both on a flat surface and when attached to a computer monitor. AdjutaCam’s infringement litigation against Newegg included a Markman order, indicating that AdjustaCam's suit was baseless, and extended expert discovery. Just before summary judgment briefing, AdjustaCam voluntarily dismissed its infringement claims against Newegg with prejudice. Newegg then sought attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. 285. Following a remand in light of intervening Supreme Court precedent clarifying what constitutes an exceptional case, the district court again denied Newegg’s motion for fees. The Federal Circuit reversed. Based on the circumstances presented here, the wholesale reliance on the previous judge’s fact-finding was an abuse of discretion. The record points to this case as standing out from others with respect to the substantive strength of AdjustaCam’s litigating position. Where AdjustaCam may have filed a weak infringement lawsuit, accusing Newegg’s products of infringing the patent, AdjustaCam’s suit became baseless after the district court’s Markman order. View "AdjustaCam, LLC v. Newegg, Inc." on Justia Law

The Commerce Department conducted an antidumping investigation into Turkish oil country tubular goods, 19 U.S.C. 1677b(a)(1)(B)(i). When calculating the dumping margin, if a foreign country would normally impose an import duty on an input used to manufacture the subject merchandise, but offers a rebate or exemption from the duty if the input is exported to the U.S., Commerce increases the export price to account for the rebated or unpaid import duty (duty drawback). Çayirova produces oil country tubular goods only from J55-grade coils. Çayirova imported various grades of coils but sourced all its J55 from a domestic Turkish producer. Normally, Çayirova would pay an import duty on its imported non-J55 coils. Turkey, however, has a duty drawback regime under which “equivalent goods” may be substituted for each other. A Turkish importer may import goods into Turkey duty-free if the importer exports a sufficient volume of finished goods incorporating either the imported or equivalent goods. Turkey considers Çayirova’s imported coils to be “equivalent” to Çayirova’s domestically-acquired J55 coils. Çayirova used its exports of oil country tubular goods to the U.S. to receive duty drawbacks on its imported non-J55 coils. Commerce, the Trade Court, and the Federal Circuit agreed that Çayirova was not entitled to a duty drawback adjustment to reduce its antidumping margin because none of the goods for which duties were exempted (non-J55 coils) could be used to produce Çayirova’s oil country tubular goods. View "Maverick Tube Corp. v. United States" on Justia Law

Appellants, current and former employees of the U.S. Secret Service, alleged that, as a result of new practices, the government denied them the two consecutive days off from work to which they were entitled under 5 U.S.C. 6101(a)(3)(B). The Claims Court concluded that it was without jurisdiction because this provision is not money-mandating because it only concerns work scheduling practices and does not address employees’ entitlement to pay. The Federal Circuit affirmed that court's dismissal of the case. “At most,” section 6101(a)(3)(B) entitles employees to have their basic 40-hour workweek scheduled in a particular fashion; whether their basic 40- hour workweek is Monday through Friday with Saturday and Sunday off, or Monday through Saturday with Wednesday and Sunday off, does not, itself, affect employees’ statutory entitlement to pay. Because section 6101(a)(3)(B) does not “‘command[] payment of money to the employee,’” nor is it “reasonably amenable to the reading that it mandates a right to money damages,” violations of the subsection do not implicate the remedies prescribed in the Back Pay Act. View "Adams v. United States" on Justia Law

The claims at issue involve testing methods for fetal aneuploidies, conditions in which a fetus either has an abnormally high number of chromosomes (e.g., Down’s syndrome) or an abnormally low number (e.g., Turner’s syndrome). Previously, physicians diagnosed fetal aneuploidies using invasive amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling or less invasive methods, such as ultrasonography and biochemical marker detection that had suboptimal accuracy. In three interference proceedings between Stanford and Chinese University, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that Stanford’s claims were unpatentable for lack of written description. The Federal Circuit vacated, finding that the Board relied on improper evidence and did not cite other substantial evidence to support its key findings. Whether a patent claim satisfies the written description requirement, 35 U.S.C. 112, depends on whether the description clearly allows persons of ordinary skill in the art to recognize that the inventor invented what is claimed. On remand, the Board should examine whether a person of ordinary skill would have understood that the patent’s specification disclosed random MPS sequencing and would have known, as of the priority date, that the specification’s reference to Illumina products meant random MPS sequencing as recited in the claims, by examining the record evidence as to pre-filing date art-related facts on Illumina products. View "Stanford University v. Chinese University of Hong Kong" on Justia Law

In 2001, Dr. Klingemann filed a patent application directed to a method of treating cancer by administering natural killer cells. After years of examination, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected the application on obviousness grounds. The Patent and Trial Appeal Board affirmed that rejection. Nantkwest, as assignee of the application, appealed to the district court under 35 U.S.C. 145, in lieu of an immediate appeal to the Federal Circuit 35 U.S.C. 145. The statute provides that the applicant must pay “[a]ll of the expenses of the proceeding,” “regardless of the outcome.” After prevailing in the district court, the USPTO sought to recover $111,696.39 in fees under section 145. Although the district court granted the USPTO’s expert fees, it denied its requested attorneys’ fees, citing the “American Rule,” under which litigants pay their own attorneys’ fees, win or lose, unless a statute or contract provides otherwise. The district court concluded that the “[a]ll expenses” provision of the statute was neither sufficiently specific nor explicit enough for the authorization of attorneys’ fees. The Federal Circuit reversed. Section 145 entitles the USPTO to compensation for the diversion of its resources in the defense of section 145 appeals. View "Nantkwest, Inc. v. Matal" on Justia Law

The patent, covering methods of treating hepatitis C by administering compounds having a specific chemical and stereochemical structure, issued on a final application filed on June 27, 2003, by the inventor, Storer. In an interference proceeding, Storer was initially declared the senior party based on the “S1” provisional application's June 28, 2002 filing date. Clark’s Application was filed September 12, 2007, with priority claimed to a provisional application filed on May 30, 2003. Both were filed before the effective date of the America Invents Act, which abolished the first-to-invent interference rule in favor of a first-to-file rule. Clark moved to deny Storer the priority date of the S1 application and to invalidate Storer’s claims, arguing that the S1 application did not enable compounds having the 2´F(down) substituent. Storer argued that these compounds were generically disclosed in the S1 application, and were readily obtained based on the disclosure in the S1 provisional and prior art. The Board awarded priority to Clark. The Federal Circuit affirmed; substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding that “a high amount of experimentation is necessary to synthesize” the target compound. The record showed sufficient variability and unpredictability to support a conclusion that Storer’s provisional application did not enable the interference subject matter. View "Storer v. Clark" on Justia Law