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

Georgallis applied to the Patent and Trademark Office to register the mark MAYARI in standard characters for use on wine in International Class 33. Oakville opposed the registration, alleging that Georgallis’s mark would likely cause confusion with Oakville’s previously registered and used mark MAYA in equivalent-to-standard characters, also for use on wine in International Class 33. After considering: similarity of the marks in their entireties as to appearance, sound, connotation, and commercial impression; similarity of the goods; similarity of trade channels; conditions under which and buyers to whom sales are made; fame of the prior mark; similar marks in use on similar goods; absence of actual confusion; right to exclude others from use; extent of potential confusion; and federal wine labelling requirements, the Board found that factors two, three, and four favored a finding of likelihood of confusion, that the first factor favored a finding of no likelihood of confusion, while the other factors were neutral. The Board found the goods to be “identical,” despite “a substantial difference in price” and other “differences in the specific nature of the wines,” but found that, overall, “the marks create significantly different commercial impressions” and dismissed Oakville’s opposition. The Federal Circuit affirmed; substantial evidence supported the finding of dissimilarity. View "Oakville Hills Cellar, Inc v. Georgallis Holdings, LLC" on Justia Law

The Federal Aviation Administration hired De Santis in 2013 and fired him less than one month later, while he was in his probationary period. He appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board under 5 C.F.R. 210.101, 315.805, and 315.806, which apply to employees in the competitive service. The Board dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because De Santis was in the excepted service, not the competitive service. The Federal Circuit affirmed, citing 49 U.S.C. 40122(g)(3), which authorizes FAA employees to appeal “any action that was appealable to the Board … as of March 31, 1996.” Under that section, Board jurisdiction over an FAA employee’s appeal depends on whether, given the employee’s status in the excepted service at the time of the challenged action, that employee comes within the grants of appeal rights that existed on March 31, 1996. The court rejected an alternative reading under which the Board would disregard the employee's actual current status and ask what status a person in that position, or a similar position, would have had on March 31, 1996. De Santis was an excepted-service employee, and the regulatory appeal rights at issue, unchanged since March 31, 1996, do not apply to excepted-service employees. View "De Santis v. Merit Sys.Protection Bd." on Justia Law

In January, 2000, Immersion filed an application (846 patent) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, disclosing a mechanism for providing haptic feedback to electronic device users. Immersion filed an International Application that published as WO 109 in July, 2001. The two written descriptions are materially identical. The WO 109 publication invalidates claims to its disclosed subject matter unless those claims were entitled to an effective filing date before July 26, 2002, 35 U.S.C. 102(b). On August 6, 2002, the day the 846 patent issued, Immersion filed the application for the 875 patent, which shared its description. Immersion asserted a January 2000 effective filing date (846 patent’s application date), citing 35 U.S.C. 120, under which, “[a]n application for patent for an invention disclosed adequately … in an application previously filed ... shall have the same effect, as to such invention, as though filed on the date of the prior application, if filed before the patenting or abandonment of or termination of proceedings on the first application or on an application similarly entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the first application.” This timing benefit shrinks the universe of “prior” art for determining validity. The district court held that the 875 application was not “filed before the patenting” of the 846 application because they were filed on the same day, so that the 875 patent’s filing date was August 6, 2002, rendering the patent invalid because the WO 109 publication was published more than one year earlier. The Federal Circuit reversed: an application may be “filed before the patenting” of the earlier application when both legal acts, filing and patenting, occur on the same day. View "Immersion Corp. v. HTC Corp." on Justia Law

Allied’s patent, “Multiple Tool Attachment System,” is directed to heavy machinery construction and demolition tools, such as metal cutting shears, plate shears, concrete crushers, and grapples, that can be attached to a universal body. Traditionally, such tools were separate. The system has a “quick change feature” for easy conversion to each of several tools. Genesis sought inter partes reexamination, asserting the patent was unpatentable because it was anticipated and obvious over prior art. During reexamination, Allied amended claims and added new claims. A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examiner allowed the amended claims and confirmed patentability. The Patent Trial and Appeals Board concluded that seven claims would have been obvious and allowed Allied to reopen prosecution. Allied submitted a second round of amendments. The examiner found the amendments did not overcome the PTAB’s ground of rejection. The PTAB affirmed, finding that prior art “teaches one of ordinary skill in the art the desirability of simplifying disassembly of jaws, and discloses a mechanism for doing so,” and that a person of ordinary skill in the art could have modified prior art to provide for a “wide range of angular movement.” The Federal Circuit affirmed, stating that substantial evidence supported a finding of motivation to combine prior art references. View "Allied Erecting & Dismantling Co., Inc. v. Genesis Attachments, LLC" on Justia Law

Pompe’s disease is a genetic condition associated with a deficiency or absence of the lysosomal enzyme acid α-glucosidase (GAA), which breaks down glycogen, a larger molecule, into glucose. In a person with Pompe’s disease, glycogen accumulates in the heart and muscles, causing progressive muscle weakness and respiratory symptoms, and, in early-onset cases, cardiac symptoms. Early efforts at enzyme replacement therapy failed because the injected enzyme was predominantly taken up by the patient’s liver. By 1997, research had progressed and the FDA approved Duke University’s application for Orphan Drug Designation for a new therapy, involving injection of a recombinant form of GAA. In 2013, Biomarin sought inter partes review of Genzyme’s patents, directed to treating Pompe’s disease with injections of GAA, asserting that claims were obvious, given the Duke press release and prior references. Genzyme argued that because all references described in vitro experiments, a person of ordinary skill would not find those experiments predictive of results in a human patient. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Board’s conclusion that “a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success at the time the invention was made,” and “no more than routine processes were needed” to achieve the results recited in the disputed claims. View "Genzyme Therapeutic Prods., Ltd. P'ship v. Biomarin Pharma., Inc." on Justia Law

ComplementSoft’s patent, issued in 2006, is directed to an “Integrated Development Environment for generating and maintaining source code . . . in particular, programmed in data manipulation languages,” and characterizes a development environment as comprising a set of software tools allowing users to develop, edit, and debug software for a particular programming language or set of programming languages. The contemplated development environment utilizes a graphical user interface and is particularly designed for data manipulation languages, including SAS®, which is developed by SAS. On SAS's petition for inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found all of the instituted claims, except for claim 4, unpatentable in view of prior art. The Federal Circuit agreed on the challenged constructions and determined that the Board did not need to address claims it did not institute. The court vacated the determination that claim 4 was patentable and remanded for the parties to address a new construction that the Board adopted in its final decision after previously interpreting the claim differently. The court noted that it is uncertain whether SAS will be able to show unpatentability of claim 4 even under the construction of “graphical representations of data flows” that the Board adopted and that it agreed with. View "SAS Inst., Inc. v. ComplementSof, LLC." on Justia Law

From 1997-2001, Nacchio served as Qwest's CEO. Based on 2001 stock trades, Nacchio reported a net gain of $44,632,464.38 on his return and paid $17,974,832 in taxes. In 2007, Nacchio was convicted of 19 counts of insider trading, 15 U.S.C. 78j, 78ff. Following a remand, the court resentenced Nacchio to serve 70 months in prison, pay a 19 million dollar fine, and forfeit the net proceeds, $44,632,464.38. Nacchio settled a concurrent SEC action, agreeing to disgorge $44,632,464. Nacchio’s criminal forfeiture satisfied his disgorgement obligation. The Justice Department notified participants in private securities class action litigation or SEC civil litigation concerning Qwest stock that they were eligible to receive a remission from Nacchio’s forfeiture. Nacchio sought an income tax credit of $17,974,832 for taxes paid on his trading profits. The IRS argued that his forfeiture was a nondeductible penalty or fine and that he was estopped from seeking tax relief because of his conviction. The Claims Court held that Nacchio could deduct his forfeiture payment under Internal Revenue Code 165, but not under I.R.C. 162 and was not collaterally estopped from pursuing special relief under I.R.C. 1341. The Federal Circuit reversed as to section 165;Nacchio failed to establish that his forfeiture was not a “fine or similar penalty.” Because establishing deductibility under another section of the code is a prerequisite to pursuing relief under section 1341, Nacchio cannot pursue a deduction under that section. View "Nacchio v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, employed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, (CBP) as Supply Chain Security Specialists in its Customs-Trade Protection Against Terrorism program, travelled and worked at foreign posts designated by the Secretary of State as “danger pay posts.” They alleged that they did not receive overtime pay as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 216(b). Count II, citing the Overseas Differentials and Allowances Act (ODAA) of 1960, 5 U.S.C. 5928, claimed that CBP denied them danger pay allowances for work performed at posts that the Department of State has designated as eligible for such allowances. The Claims Court dismissed Count II for lack of jurisdiction on grounds that ODAA is not a money-mandating statute, that the State Department regulation (DSSR) is not money-mandating, and that CBP has not adopted a policy of paying danger pay to all eligible employees. The Federal Circuit affirmed; section 5928, the DSSR, and the alleged unwritten policy of providing danger pay, cannot reasonably be construed as “money-mandating.” View "Acevedo v. United States" on Justia Law

Rainey, a State Department Supervisory Foreign Affairs Officer, was with the Africa Contingency Operations program when his supervisor relieved him of his duties as contracting officer representative. Rainey complained to the Office of Special Counsel, alleging that his duties had been terminated because he had refused his supervisor’s order to tell a contractor to rehire a terminated subcontractor. Rainey believed that carrying out the order would require him to violate the Federal Acquisition Regulation by improperly interfering with personnel decisions of a prime contractor and requiring the prime contractor to operate in conflict with the contract. The Office of Special Counsel closed its investigation without granting relief. Rainey filed an Individual Right of Action appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board, citing the “right-to-disobey” provision of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(9)(D). During his hearing, the Supreme Court held, in in Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, that the word “law” in the Act's “right-to-disclose” provision, refers only to a statute, and not to a rule or regulation. The ALJ held that the Board lacked jurisdiction over a claim based on a regulation. The Board agreed. The Federal Circuit affirmed, stating that its decision was constrained by the right-to-disobey provision's language, which protects covered employees from retaliation “for refusing to obey an order that would require the individual to violate a law,” and the MacLean holding. View "Rainey v. Merit Sys. Protection Bd." on Justia Law

Indacon’s patent is directed to a system and method for searching, indexing, perusing, and manipulating files in a database, particularly through the insertion of automatically generated hyperlinks. Following the district court’s claim construction order, Indacon stipulated to noninfringement. The court entered final judgment in favor of Facebook. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the constructions of the claim terms “alias,” “custom link,” “custom linking relationship,” and “link term.” View "Indacon, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc." on Justia Law