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

Affinity’s 085 patent, entitled “System and Method to Communicate Targeted Information,” describes a “method for targeted advertising” in which an advertisement is selected for delivery to the user of a portable device based on at least one piece of demographic information about the user. Despite the title, only three sentences in the specification and only one of the 20 claims deal with targeted advertising; the rest are directed to media systems that deliver content to a handheld wireless electronic device. The district court found that the claims are directed to the abstract idea of “delivering selectable media content and subsequently playing the selected content on a portable device” and do not supply an inventive concept. The “085 Patent solves no problems, includes no implementation software, designs no system. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The 085 patent is not directed to the solution of a “technological problem,” nor is it directed to an improvement in computer or network functionality. It claims the general concept of streaming user-selected content to a portable device. The addition of basic user customization features to the interface does not alter the abstract nature of the claims and does not add an inventive component that renders them patentable. View "Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. Amazon.com Inc." on Justia Law

The 695 patent, issued in 2005, discusses technology that identifies incoming telephone calls and alerts the called party to the caller’s identity. The patent purportedly improves on pre-existing systems by introducing a call-screening system that verbally announces a caller’s identity before the call is connected. The system may be installed between the incoming telephone line and the user’s telephone and does not require a special telephone, auxiliary display terminal, or speaker to let users screen calls. In an inter partes reexamination of the 695 patent, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the examiner’s rejection of multiple claims as obvious under 35 U.S.C. 103(a). The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the obviousness determination as supported by substantial evidence and the Board’s construction of “identity information.” View "Classco, Inc. v. Apple, Inc." on Justia Law

WesternGeco’s patents relate to technologies used to search for oil and gas beneath the ocean floor. WesternGeco manufactures the Q-Marine, and performs surveys for oil companies. ION manufactures the DigiFIN, and sells to its customers, who perform surveys for oil companies. WesternGeco filed suit. A jury found infringement and no invalidity and awarded $93,400,000 in lost profits and $12,500,000 in reasonable royalties. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that WesternGeco was not the owner of the patents and lacked standing and that the court applied an incorrect standard under 35 U.S.C. 271(f)(1). The court upheld denial of enhanced damages for willful infringement and reversed the award of lost profits resulting from conduct occurring abroad. Following vacatur and remand after the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision, Halo Electronics, the Federal Circuit vacated the judgment with respect to enhanced damages, 35 U.S.C. 284. The Halo decision overturned the two-part Seagate test as “‘unduly rigid,” holding that district courts must have greater discretion in awarding enhanced damages in cases where the defendant’s infringement was egregious, cases “typified by willful misconduct." View "WesternGeco L.L.C. v. ION Geophysical Corp." on Justia Law

In 1987, Fitzgerald began working as an Immigration Inspector with the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Justice. From 1988-2000, she served as a Customs Inspector with the Customs Service of the Department of the Treasury. Fitzgerald has been continuously employed in various Instructor positions at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) since 2000, providing training to federal criminal investigators and law enforcement officers. In 2012, Fitzgerald requested review of her employment history so that she could obtain Customs Officer retirement credit for her past service with INS and Customs. Federal retirement laws extend enhanced benefits to certain groups, such as law-enforcement officers and firefighters, who have served in physically rigorous positions. Under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System, those benefits include eligibility to retire with an annuity at an earlier age than many other federal employees and eligibility to retire based on fewer years of service, 5 U.S.C. 8412(d)(1),(2). In 2007 the law was amended to extend benefits to Customs and Border Patrol Officers. The Merit Systems Protection Board and Federal Circuit affirmed denial of her claim, finding that the amendment did not provide “retroactive service” credit for service performed before July 2008, its effective date. View "Fitzgerald v. Dep't of Homeland Sec." on Justia Law

Abbott’s 915 patent discloses a protein, TBP-II, which binds to and neutralizes a protein called Tumor Necrosis Factor α (TNFα), which is associated with various immunological diseases. Following a 2008 remand by the district court, the Board of Patent Appeals rejected claims by Yeda that the patent was invalid as anticipated. In 2015, the district court affirmed. The issue of invalidity turned on whether the patent benefits from the filing dates from either of two German patent applications. If it did, then the field of prior art narrows to exclude the claimed anticipating reference. Whether the 915 patent was entitled to benefit from the German application’s filing date depends on whether the German application provided adequate written description support for the invention claimed in the 915 patent. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s 2015 decision that Abbott’s 915 patent is supported by the written description of one of the German applications, rendering moot Yeda’s appeal concerning the 2008 decision. View "Yeda Research & Dev. Co., Ltd. v. Abbott GMBH & Co. KG" on Justia Law

The 215 patent is directed to improving the efficiency by which messages are sent from a receiver to a sender in a telecommunications system to advise the sender that errors occurred in a particular message. Data is transmitted in discrete packets, "Protocol Data Units" (PDUs). The useful data or “payload” in those packets is carried in user data PDUs (DPDUs). Each DPDU contains a sequence number that uniquely identifies that packet, allowing the receiving computer to determine when it either has received packets out of order or has failed to receive particular packets, so that the receiver can correctly combine the packets in the proper order or direct the sender to retransmit particular packets. The receiver uses a different type of packet, a status PDU (S-PDU), to notify the sender of the DPDUs it failed to receive. The patent is concerned with organizing the information contained in S-PDUs efficiently, to minimize the size of the S-PDUs, thus conserving bandwidth. The patent discloses several methods for encoding the sequence numbers of missing packets in S-PDUs. In inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found, and the Federal Circuit affirmed, that various claims were anticipated and that the petition for review was not time-barred. View "Wi-Fi One, LLC v. Broadcom Corp." on Justia Law

LifeNet’s 200 patent claims plasticized soft tissue grafts suitable for transplantation into humans. The patent explains that tissue grafts are typically preserved and provided in a dehydrated state, such as through freeze-drying, then rehydrated before implantation. The freeze-drying process is not optimal: it can cause the tissue to become brittle with a tendency to fracture; it requires time in the operating room to rehydrate the tissue; and even after rehydration the tissue’s properties do not approximate that of normal tissue, and the graft can fail. The 200 patent’s “plasticized” tissue grafts avoid these problems. The tissue is preserved not by freeze-drying but by replacing the tissue’s water with biocompatible plasticizers, such as glycerol, that provide the hydrating functions of water. These plasticized grafts exhibit properties similar to that of normal tissue and avoid the rehydration process required for freeze-dried tissue. A jury found that the patent was not invalid and was infringed. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the district court’s conclusion that construction of the entire term “not removed” was “unnecessary,” because that two-word phrase is easily understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art to have its plain meaning that no plasticizers are removed prior to transplantation.” View "LifeNet Health v. Lifecell Corp." on Justia Law

The patents are both titled “Method for Automatically Animating Lip Synchronization and Facial Expression of Animated Characters.” The 278 patent is a continuation of the 576 patent and shares the same written description. The patents relate to automating part of a preexisting 3-D animation method. The admitted prior art method uses multiple 3-D models of a character’s face to depict various facial expressions made during speech. In suits against video game developers and publishers, the district court entered summary judgment, finding that the asserted claims are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter and were invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the ordered combination of claimed steps, using unconventional rules that relate sub-sequences of phonemes, timings, and morph weight sets, is not directed to an abstract idea and is, therefore, patent-eligible subject matter under section 101. View "Micro, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games Am., Inc." on Justia Law

Schlumberger hired Rutherford in 2006. She was promoted to Director of Intellectual Property and later to Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property. Rutherford managed a copyright lawsuit and evaluated legal risks involving Petrel, Schlumberger’s software platform for three-dimensional modeling of oil wells. One competitor’s product analyzed during this project was Austin’s RECON software (the 319 patent). After seven years, Rutherford left Schlumberger. She began working as Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Acacia, which began discussions to acquire the 319 patent. Petrel was discussed as a potential target of patent infringement litigation. Rutherford participated in the decision to hire CEP as outside counsel for all 319-patent-related litigation. Dynamic was formed to hold the 319 patent. Dynamic filed several lawsuits, including one accusing Petrel of infringement. On Schlumberger’s motion, the court disqualified Rutherford, other Acacia in-house counsel, and CEP from representing Dynamic in the case. Schlumberger also sued Rutherford in Texas state court, presenting evidence that she retained confidential, privileged information to provide to Acacia. The Texas court dismissed all but a breach-of-contract claim and sanctioned Schlumberger for bringing the suit. The federal district court found that Rutherford’s work at Schlumberger was substantially related to her work at Acacia; that the evidence of her involvement created an irrebuttable presumption that she acquired confidential information requiring her disqualification; that the acquired knowledge should be imputed to all Acacia attorneys for purposes of Dynamic’s suit; and that disqualification extended to CEP. Because the pleadings were drafted by disqualified counsel, the court dismissed Dynamic’s claims without prejudice. The Federal Circuit affirmed, citing the ABA Model Rules and the Texas Disciplinary Rules. View "Dynamic 3D Geosolutions LLC v. Schlumberger Ltd." on Justia Law

Nutt was hit and killed by a U.S. Army soldier driving an Army truck in 1983. His family filed a claim under 28 U.S.C. 2674, the Federal Tort Claims Act. A 1985 Agreement provided that the government “agrees to purchase annuities which will pay:” $60,000 per year to Cynthia; lump-sum payments on specified anniversaries to Cynthia; lump-sum payments on specified anniversaries to James; plus $240,000 to Cynthia and a payment to the Nutts’ attorneys. The Agreement provided that “[t]he payments by the United States set forth above shall operate as full and complete discharge of all payments to be made to and of all claims which might be asserted.” The government purchased a structured annuity ELNY. ELNY went into receivership in 1991. In 2011, the New York State Liquidation Bureau informed the Nutts that their benefit payments would be reduced. In 2013, they began receiving payments reduced to approximately 45% of their expected benefits. They were informed that, as of 2015, they would not be receiving the anniversary payments. The Nutts alleged breach of the agreement. The Federal Circuit affirmed dismissal, finding that the government “was not obligated to guarantee or insure that annuity; its obligation ended at the initial purchase of the ELNY annuity.” View "Nutt v. United States" on Justia Law