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

Magnesium metal is produced using the “Pidgeon” process, which involves stainless steel reaction vessels called retorts. After approximately 60 days of use in multiple cycles of manufacturing, retorts become unsuitable for the production of magnesium and are recycled; the recycled steel is used to produce new retorts. In 1995, the Commerce Department entered an antidumping order on magnesium metal from China. In 2010, Commerce provided notice of an opportunity to seek review of the order. TMI, a foreign exporter of magnesium produced in China, and USM, a domestic producer, requested review of TMI’s sales. Commerce solicited information, including TMI’s business records, surrogate value and country selection, and freight rates, then constructed a normal value for magnesium by creating surrogate values for the raw materials used in the manufacturing process. It did not include a surrogate value for steel retorts, treating retorts as indirect materials and accounting for their cost as overhead. Commerce explained that “retorts are not physically incorporated into the final product” and “are more similar to a kiln or furnace.” Retorts are reusable and “are not replaced so regularly as to represent a direct factor rather than overhead.” Following remand, Commerce affirmed its finding that retorts are properly treated as factory overhead. The Trade Court affirmed. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The relative cost of retorts provides no reason to reject Commerce’s findings as unsupported by substantial evidence. View "US Magnesium, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

Purifoy missed two days of work as a housekeeping aid in a Milwaukee VA medical facility without authorization. That week, he sought treatment for substance abuse at the facility where he worked. He was admitted and transferred to Madison for treatment. Purifoy verbally informed his VA supervisor that he would miss work, but did not fill out leave paperwork. Nor did he inform his parole officer that he would miss upcoming supervision visits. His parole officer issued an arrest warrant. Purifoy agreed to report to the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for treatment as an alternative to parole revocation. He entered the program, but was terminated after an altercation with another inmate; he remained as an inmate at MSDF for 38 more days. Following his release, Purifoy returned to work. The VA removed him from employment as a penalty for his unexcused absences, having first sent him a notice of proposed removal while he was at MSDF. A second notice cited two instances of extended unauthorized absence. Although an ALJ ordered Purifoy reinstated, the Merit Systems Protection Board upheld the termination. The Federal Circuit vacated, finding that the Board’s analysist improperly omitted relevant mitigation factors and discarded the ALJ’s credibility determinations without adequate rationale. View "Purifoy v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs" on Justia Law

The power companies allege that they were overcharged for electricity during several months in 2000–2001 and sought to recover the overcharges from the federal government based on sales by the federal Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). The California Power Exchange (Cal-PX) and the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) were responsible for acquiring and distributing electricity between producers and consumers in California and setting prices for the electricity. The power companies argued that a contract existed between all consumers of electricity (including themselves) and all producers of electricity (including the government agencies) in California. The government argued that the contracts were only between the middleman entities—Cal-PX and Cal-ISO—and the consumers and producers individually. The Claims Court dismissed for lack of standing. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The companies lack privity of contract or any other relationship with the government that would confer standing. Under the Tucker Act, the Claims Court has jurisdiction over contract cases in which the government is a party, 28 U.S.C. 1491(a)(1); normally a contract between the plaintiff and the government is required to establish standing. The court noted that the companies may have claims against the parties with whom they are in contractual privity, the electricity exchanges. View "Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. United States" on Justia Law

IV owns the 050 patent entitled, “Distributed Content Identification System,” directed to methods of screening emails and other data files for unwanted content; the 142 patent, entitled, “Automated Post Office Based Rule Analysis of E-Mail Messages and Other Data Objects for Controlled Distribution in Network Environments;” and the 610 patent, entitled, “Computer Virus Screening Methods and Systems.” IV sued two developers of anti-malware and anti-spam software for infringement. A jury found that the asserted claims were not invalid under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 and that certain claims were infringed. After trial, the court held that the asserted claims of the 050 and 142 patents were patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101, but that the asserted claim of the 610 patent was eligible. The Federal Circuit affirmed as to the 050 and 142 patents, stating that “each step does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions.” The court reversed as to the 610 patent, which is “not directed to a specific improvement to computer functionality,” but to the use of conventional or generic technology in a nascent but well-known environment. View "Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp." on Justia Law

Lyda’s patents describe “obtaining real time responses to remote programming” by “allow[ing] persons viewing or listening to a broadcast to respond to the broadcast in real time without requiring a personal computer.” Lyda sued CBS for infringement in connection with the television show “Big Brother.” Lyda alleged that audience members could influence the show by voting using cell phone text messages. The complaint alleged that CBS engaged an independent contractor to test the system and that the independent contractor used unnamed third parties to perform the voting. The district court dismissed, finding that the allegations implicated a theory of joint infringement and that Form 18, the Federal Rules’ standard for specificity in pleading direct infringement, does not apply to joint infringement claims. The court stated that “Plaintiff’s allegations are simply too vague, even under the Form 18 standard, to articulate a claim for relief.” The Federal Circuit affirmed, applying the “Twombly/Iqbal” standard, which requires pleading facts sufficient to allow a reasonable inference that all steps of the claimed method are performed and either one party exercises the requisite “direction or control” over the others’ performance or the actors form a joint enterprise such that performance of every step is attributable to the controlling party. View "Lyda v. CBS Corp." on Justia Law

Drone’s patents are directed to systems for remotely controlled machines. Before the invention, conventional remote-control systems included a remote-controlled device (e.g., a model airplane) and a handheld device with a stick that controlled movement in two directions. Controlling three directions required simultaneous use of both hands. Drone’s patents purport to enable a user to synchronize the movement of a remote-controlled device with the movement of a controller: moving the handheld control itself causes a synchronous movement of the airplane. After entering default judgment as a sanction for Parrot’s failure to comply with discovery orders, the district court awarded Drone damages for Parrot’s infringement of the patents and awarded Drone attorney fees. The Federal Circuit vacated. The district court abused its discretion in issuing discovery orders requiring Parrot to turn over its on-board source code and in entering a default judgment for failure to comply. The court upheld denial of a motion to dismiss Drone’s complaint for lack of standing; Parrot had argued that the assignments to Drone were invalid because the person named on the patents and who assigned the patents to Drone was not the true inventor. On remand, Parrot may raise the affirmative defense of improper inventorship under 35 U.S.C. 102(f). View "Drone Techs., Inc. v. Parrot S.A." on Justia Law

Sigma-Tau imported two chemical products, both stabilized forms of the compound carnitine. Carnitine is a naturally occurring amino acid derivative and an important nutrient in the human body, where it serves to transport long-chain fatty acids into mitochondria, the centers for energy production within each cell. Our bodies obtain carnitine exogenously, from food, and also produce it endogenously, by breaking down and reforming protein. United States Customs and Border Protection initially classified the products under a subheading of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HSTUS) that carries a duty. Sigma-Tau protested, arguing that the products should be classified under HTSUS heading 2936 (which encompasses “provitamins and vitamins”), subheading 2936.29.50, a duty-free classification. The Court of International Trade concluded that Sigma-Tau’s products should be classified under a different subheading, 2923.90.00, making them ineligible for duty-free treatment. The Federal Circuit reversed, agreeing with Sigma-Tau that its carnitine products are properly classified under that heading, because carnitine is a vitamin in neonates. View "Sigma-Tau Healthscience, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Husky’s 536 patent discloses a molding machine having a clamp assembly comprising a stationary platen, a movable platen, tie bars, tie bar locks that couple the tie bars to the movable platen, and clamp actuators that supply a clamping force to the tie bars. On inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found several claims invalid as anticipated. The Federal Circuit dismissed, for lack of jurisdiction, Husky’s argument that the Board’s determination during the institution phase that assignor estoppel cannot bar an assignor or his privies from petitioning for inter partes review. Any question concerning assignor estoppel necessarily implicates who may petition for review; such a question falls outside of the narrow exceptions to the otherwise broad ban on judicial review of the decision whether to institute inter partes review. The court vacated with respect to four claims that were upheld by the Board. The Board erred in determining that one prior reference did not incorporate another for purposes of anticipation and provided no further reasoning why claims the were not anticipated. View "Husky Injections Molding Sys., Ltd. v. Athena Automation Ltd." on Justia Law

Sprint's patents concern voiceover-IP technology for transmitting calls over the internet, instead of through traditional telephone lines. The patents discuss the hand-off between traditional telephone lines (a “narrow-band network” or “circuit-switched network”) and a data network (a “broadband network” or “packet-switched network”), such as the internet. Both the “control patents” and the “ATM interworking patents” describe the use of a “processing system,” which receives a signal from a traditional telephone network and processes information related to the call to select the path that the call should take through the data network. In the control patents, a “communications control processor” selects the network elements and the connections for the path. In the ATM interworking patents, a “signaling processor” or a “call/connection manager” selects the virtual connections by which the call will pass through the ATM network and performs other functions, including validation, echo control, and billing. Both specifications disclose that logic for selecting a path resides in lookup-tables. The district court found the claims invalid as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112. The Federal Circuit reversed. The terms “processing system” does not prevent the claims, read in light of the specification and the prosecution history, from informing those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty. View "Cox Commc'ns, Inc. v. Sprint Commc'n Co., LP" on Justia Law

Affinity’s 379 patent contains two independent claims, directed to streaming regional broadcast signals to cellular telephones located outside the region served by the regional broadcaster. The district court held that the 379 patent is directed to an abstract idea: the purpose of the claimed invention, disseminating regionally broadcast content to users outside the region, is a well-known, longstanding business practice, and the claims directed to that purpose are not tangible and concrete. The court found that the claimed “downloadable application with graphical user interface” does not qualify as an “inventive concept.” After exploring the “developing body of law” under 35 U.S.C. 101, the Federal Circuit affirmed. The only limitations on the breadth of the result-focused, functional claims in this case are that the application used by the cellular telephone must be wirelessly downloadable and that the cellular telephone must have a graphical user interface display that allows the user to select the regional broadcasting channel. Those additional limitations describe purely conventional features of cellular telephones and the applications that enable them to perform particular functions. They do not meaningfully limit the scope of the claims. View "Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. DirecTV, LLC" on Justia Law