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

Stryker’s patents concern pulsed lavage devices that deliver pressurized irrigation for medical therapies. In 1993 Stryker applied for the patents and began to market portable, battery powered, handheld devices. Older systems required a central power source and external mechanical pumps and needed to be wheeled around the hospital. Stryker’s patents issued in 2000, 2001 and 2006. Zimmer introduced its first portable pulsed lavage device in 1996; its Pulsavac Plus achieved $55 million in annual sales in 2007. Stryker sued Zimmer. The district court found infringement of two patents. The jury found infringement of the third patent; that all the asserted claims were valid; and that Zimmer had willfully infringed all three patents. The court awarded $70 million in lost profits plus attorneys’ fees. The Federal Circuit affirmed that the patents were valid and infringed, and the award of damages, but reversed the judgment that infringement was willful and vacated the awards of treble damages and of attorneys’ fees. The Supreme Court subsequently determined that the previously-controlling Seagate test for willful infringement and enhanced damages “unduly confines the ability of district courts to exercise the discretion conferred on them.” On remand, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the award of treble damages, the finding that this was an exceptional case, and the award of attorneys’ fees. View "Stryker Corp v. Zimmer, Inc." on Justia Law

Aldridge served on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, 1984-1992, and was denied a disability rating higher than 10% for patellofemoral syndrome on his knees in 2013. The Board of Veterans Appeals informed Aldridge that he had 120 days to file a notice of appeal with the Veterans Court, 38 U.S.C. 7266(a), by April 23, 2014. The Veterans Court received his notice on October 27, 2014. Aldridge acknowledged that his appeal was late, but argued that deaths in his family and his resulting depressive state prevented him from timely filing. His mother died on September 27, 2013; his daughter gave birth to a stillborn child on December 16; and his sister died on January 14, 2014. He asked the court to apply the doctrine of equitable tolling. The court determined that Aldridge had failed to demonstrate that his family’s losses “themselves directly or indirectly affected the timely filing of his appeal,” noting that Aldridge closed the estates of his deceased mother and sister, became his father’s primary caregiver, maintained his job at a Veterans Affairs hospital, and attempted to hire a lawyer during the time at issue. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the Veterans Court’s application of a legal standard that required proof of causation. View "Aldridge v. McDonald" on Justia Law

AVC manufactures cooling systems for integrated circuits. Asetek’s patents are directed toward liquid computer cooling systems to cool integrated circuits. Asetek brought infringement lawsuits against other competitors and sent a letter accusing AVC of infringement, based on Asetek’s mistaken belief that AVC manufactured Liqmax 120s. AVC responded that it did not manufacture Liqmax 120s, but requested a meeting. Asetek responded that if AVC was not making Liqmax 120s there was no reason to meet; that it had unsuccessfully tried to cooperate with AVC previously; and that it does not license its patents. The letter stated, “Please be advised that Asetek believes that AVC is likely selling other infringing products” and that Asetek enforces its IP. A meeting ultimately occurred ; Asetek offered AVC a license at a royalty rate of 16%. AVC then filed suit alleging that AVC had designed and built certain liquid cooling products and seeking a declaration that its products did not infringe the Asetek patents and that those patents are invalid. Accepting Asetek’s assertion that it did not know that those products existed before AVC’s complaint, the district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Federal Circuit reversed. AVC alleged sufficient facts that, “under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.” View "Asia Vital Components Co. v. Asetek Danmark A/S" on Justia Law

UCB sought a declaration that its Cimzia® brand antibody does not infringe Yeda’s 923 Patent and that the 923 Patent was invalid. Yeda counterclaimed for infringement. The district court granted summary judgment of non-infringement, holding that, based on the specification and prosecution history, the monoclonal antibodies claimed in the 923 patent are not infringed by the chimeric or humanized antibodies of the Cimzia® product. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court correctly applied the law and that Yeda is estopped from including chimeric and humanized antibodies within the scope of the monoclonal antibodies claimed in the 923 Patent. View "UCB, Inc. v. Yeda Research & Dev. Co., Ltd." on Justia Law

Veritas’s patent claims systems and methods through which, while certain processes for restoring computer data are in progress, particular data sought by an active application may be given priority for restoration and made immediately accessible. Veeam requested that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board institute inter partes review of certain claims. Veritas moved to amend, seeking to add new claims 26 and 27 if the Board ultimately concluded that the challenged claims were unpatentable. In its final decision, the Board found, contrary to Veritas’s contention, that the claims were not limited to file-level background restoration processes, but could reasonably be read as also covering block-level restoration processes: the background restorer could proceed with restoration without identifying files, just by restoring blocks of data, which often will end up restoring whole files. The Board rejected the challenged claims for obviousness, 35 U.S.C. 103, and denied Veritas’s motion to amend, without an evidentiary determination of patentability of the proposed claims, stating that Veritas had not addressed whether each new feature in each proposed claim, as distinct from the claimed combination of features, was independently known in prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s construction as the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims and upheld its obviousness determination, but vacated denial of Veritas’s motion. The court remanded for consideration of the patentability of the proposed claims. View "Veritas Techs. LLC v. Veeam Software Corp." on Justia Law

Liberty’s 325 patent, issued in 2010, is “directed to a projectile structured to be discharged from a firearm and designed to overcome the disadvantages and problems associated with conventional firearm projectiles such as, but not limited to lead or steel jacketed projectiles.” The patent grew out of the U.S. military’s “Green Ammunition Program,” developed in response to concerns that lead-based ammunition was polluting military training ranges. The 325 patent sought to address “problems of lethality” with the conventional Army “green” ammunition. The Claims Court held that ammunition rounds used by the Army embody the claims of the patent, violating 28 U.S.C. 1498. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the trial court erred in construing claim terms: reduced area of contact; intermediate opposite ends. When the terms are construed correctly, the Army rounds do not embody the claimed invention. The court affirmed the Claims Court's rejection of a breach of contract claim based on a non-disclosure agreement signed by the named inventor of the 325 patent and an Army official during negotiations for a possible contract. The Army official did not have authority to enter into an NDA on behalf of the government. View "Liberty Ammunition, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

OtterBox imports protective cases designed for smartphones. The Customs Department classified the cases as “similar containers” under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTSUS) subheading 4202.99.00 with a duty rate of 20% ad valorem. OtterBox paid duties at the 20% rate, and the goods were liquidated. OtterBox’s protest was deemed denied. In the Court of International Trade, Otterbox cited 19 U.S.C. 1515, alleging that the merchandise should have been classified as “other articles of plastics” under HTSUS subheading 3926.90.99, at a duty rate of 5.3% ad valorem. The Trade Court agreed, and the Federal Circuit affirmed,finding that the cases are not classifiable as “similar containers” under Heading 4202, but are properly classified under Heading 3926, as other articles of plastics. To fall under the general phrase “similar containers,” the merchandise must possess the same essential characteristics or purposes that unite the exemplars and noted that four characteristics unite the exemplars of Heading 4202: organizing, storing, protecting, and carrying. The Otterbox products “allow an article to be placed inside them and/or taken out without much effort by opening or closing the receptacle” and do not organize, store, or carry. While the listed examples “are not ones which permit the use of the enclosed item,” the electronic devices enclosed by the OtterBox merchandise “retain their full, 100 percent functionality while inside an OtterBox.” View "Otter Prods, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

In 2015, Jones, a veteran, filed 16 appeals with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), alleging that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), 38 U.S.C. 4301–4333, when it did not select him for various job vacancies. An administrative judge consolidated the appeals and ultimately denied relief in an Initial Decision. That Decision became the Final Decision of the MSPB when Jones did not timely file a petition for review. The Federal Circuit affirmed, first holding that it had jurisdiction, rejecting an argument that there was no . final MSPB decision from which Jones could appeal. The AJ properly found that neither direct nor circumstantial evidence supported Jones’s USERRA claim and failed to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that his military service was a motivating factor in HHS’s decision not to hire him for the subject job vacancies. View "Jones v. Dept. of Health & Human Servs." on Justia Law

Freddie Mac is a privately-owned, publicly-chartered financial services corporation, 12 U.S.C. 1452, created to provide stability in the secondary residential mortgage market. Piszel began working as the CFO of Freddie Mac in 2006. Piszel with a signing bonus of $5 million in Freddie Mac restricted stock units that would vest over four years, an annual salary of $650,000, and performance-based incentive compensation of $3 million a year in restricted stock. If terminated without cause, Piszel would receive a lump-sum cash payment of double his annual salary and certain restricted stock units would continue to vest. In 2008, facing Freddie Mac's potential collapse, Congress passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act,12 U.S.C. 4511, establishing the FHFA as Freddie Mac's new primary regulator, with authority to disaffirm any contract, after which damages for the breach would be limited to “actual direct compensatory damages.” The Act contained a limit on “golden parachutes.” Piszel alleges that he was terminated without cause and Freddie Mac “refused to provide him with any of the benefits to which he was contractually entitled.” The Claims Court dismissed his allegations of an unconstitutional taking. The Federal Circuit affirmed, noting that Piszel’s breach of contract claim remains intact despite the legislation, particularly in light of Piszel’s assertion that his contract called for “deferred compensation,” rather than a golden parachute. View "Piszel v. United States" on Justia Law

Zafer, an Ankara, Turkey, contractor, and the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) entered into a firm-fixed-price contract to construct the MILCON Support Facility at the Bagram Air Force Field in Afghanistan. Zafer was responsible for delivering materials to the site, and assumed the risk “for all costs and resulting loss or profit.” After issuing notice to proceed, USACE recognized that it could not make the project site available immediately and increased the contract price and set a new completion date. In November 2011, Pakistan closed its border from the seaport city of Karachi along the land routes into Afghanistan in response to a combat incident with the U.S. and NATO. The route remained closed for 219 days, Zafer notified USACE that the closure would greatly impact its delivery of materials and requested direction on how to proceed. USACE replied that the closure was “purely the act of Pakistan governmental authorities,” that the U.S. government was “not responsible” and denied further compensation. Zafer subsequently, repeatedly, asked for payment for additional costs. In 2013, Zafer submitted an unsuccessful request for an equitable adjustment. The contracting officer found no evidence supporting a constructive change claim. The Claims Court granted USACE summary judgment. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Zafer failed to designate specific facts to establish a constructive change claim based on either a constructive acceleration theory or on a government fault theory. View "Zafer Taahhut Insaat v. United States" on Justia Law