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

During the GATT Bubble–a 1995 application “rush” by applicants who wanted their patent claims to be governed by the pre-35 U.S.C. 154(a)(2) patent term, Hyatt filed the 938 application, which claims priority to applications filed as early as 1983. The PTO completed an initial examination in 2003, but from 2003-2012, stayed the examination of many of Hyatt’s applications pending litigation. In 2013, an examiner instructed Hyatt to select claims for examination as part of efforts to manage Hyatt’s approximately 400 pending applications. Hyatt selected eight of approximately 200 claims in that application. Hyatt responded to a non-final rejection in 2015 with significant claim amendments. The Examiner determined that the amendments shifted seven claims to different species of computer systems and processes and issued a restriction requirement between the originally-selected claims and the amended claims, requiring Hyatt to prosecute his amended claims in a new application.The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the PTO. Hyatt failed to disclose claims to a separate invention and attempted to file them years after 1995. Withholding these claims falls within the 37 C.F.R. 1.129 exception to the general rule prohibiting restriction: In an application that has been pending for at least three years as of June 8, 1995, no requirement for restriction shall be made or maintained in the application after June 8, 1995, except where the examiner has not made a requirement for restriction in the present or parent application before April 8, 1995, due to actions by the applicant. Hyatt’s amended claims are subject to the new patent term. View "Hyatt v. United States Patent and Trademark Office" on Justia Law

Air Force veteran Skaar was exposed to ionizing radiation while participating in a cleanup operation in Palomares, Spain following a 1966 midair collision involving a plane carrying nuclear weapons. In 1998, he was diagnosed with leukopenia. His doctor opined that exposure to ionizing radiation “appear[s] to be the positive agent” that historically causes leukopenia. Skaar filed an unsuccessful claim with the VA for service-connected benefits. Before the Veterans Court, he challenged the radiation dose estimates provided by the Air Force. The Veterans Court certified a class of similarly situated veterans who had participated in the Palomares cleanup operation, including veterans who had not received a Board decision but excluding veterans whose claims had been denied but not timely appealed.The Federal Circuit vacated. The Veterans Court lacked authority to certify a class that includes veterans who had not received a Board decision, a statutory prerequisite for the court’s jurisdiction, 38 U.S.C. 7252(a). Jurisdiction over Skaar’s individual claim did not create further jurisdiction over similarly situated veterans whose individual claims were beyond the court’s jurisdiction. The court rejected Skaar’s argument that the Veterans Court should have equitably tolled the appeal period for veterans whose claims had been denied but not timely appealed and should have included such veterans as members of the certified class. None of the claimants alleged the requisite due diligence in pursuing their rights. View "Skaar v. McDonough" on Justia Law

Domestic manufacturers or distributors who imported steel products subject to an ad valorem “national security” tariffs, 19 U.S.C. 1862, sought exclusions from the tariff. Domestic steel producers objected to those requests, asserting that “they could satisfactorily produce all of, or sufficient substitutes for, the material that was the subject of the exclusion requests.” The Department of Commerce denied the exclusion requests. The importers paid the duties and imported the steel products, then filed lawsuits, contending that Commerce failed to consider relevant evidence, failed to give adequate explanations, and in some instances considered legally irrelevant factors.Domestic producers, who had objected to the tariff exclusion requests before Commerce, moved to intervene as party defendants in the importers’ lawsuits. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Trade Court’s denial of intervention. Each of the proposed intervenors’ requested relief is largely identical to the government’s prayer for relief, so they have established “piggyback” standing but they did not identify a legally protectable interest to qualify as intervenors under Rule 24(a)(2). The court rejected arguments that participation in adversarial administrative proceedings bestows a Rule 24(a)(2) interest in the result, that actions to undo tariffs that specifically protect domestic producers give rise to economic interests, and that judgments removing tariff protection may practically impair the interests of direct beneficiaries of those tariffs. View "California Steel Industries, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Arendi sued LG for infringement. The District of Delaware’s rules required Arendi to “specifically identify the accused products and the asserted patent(s)” and to produce "an initial claim chart relating each accused product to the asserted claims each product allegedly infringes.” Arendi filed its Disclosure, listing hundreds of LG products as infringing four claims of the 843 patent but provided claim charts for only one product—LG’s Rebel 4 phone, labeling the Rebel 4 as “exemplary.” LG objected, stating that, “[s]hould Arendi intend to accuse [non-Rebel 4] products, then Arendi must promptly provide claim charts demonstrating how these products infringe[] or explain why Arendi contends the current claim charts are representative of specific non-charted products.” Arendi did not respond. The parties later agreed on eight representative products to represent all accused products, including seven non-Rebel 4 products. Arendi did not supplement its Disclosure. In response to an interrogatory relating to those eight products, LG reiterated that Arendi only provided infringement contentions for the Rebel 4. Arendi provided its expert report months after the close of fact discovery.The district court granted LG's motion to strike portions of that report because it “disclosed—for the first time—infringement contentions for five of” the non-Rebel 4 representative products. Arendi still did not supplement its Disclosure but filed a second complaint, asserting that LG’s non-Rebel 4 products infringed the 843 patent. The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint, citing the duplicative-litigation doctrine. View "Arendi S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics Inc." on Justia Law

The importers sought refunds of estimated duties they deposited with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for tariffs that the U.S. Trade Representative retroactively rescinded after granting exclusion requests submitted by other importers that covered the same category of products. The Trade Court dismissed the complaints for lack of jurisdiction.The Federal Circuit affirmed. The jurisdictional provision cited by the importers, 28 U.S.C. 1581(i), may not be invoked when jurisdiction under another subsection of 1581 could have been available and would have provided an adequate remedy if timely invoked. Jurisdiction would have been available under section 1581(a) had the importers timely protested Customs’ classification decisions. Failure to invoke an available remedy within the timeframe prescribed does not render the remedy manifestly inadequate. That Customs’ classification decisions became erroneous after USTR granted retroactive exclusions is irrelevant. The obligation to protest a Customs classification error does not turn on whether it was erroneous ab initio or became erroneous because of retroactive administrative action. It turns on whether Customs’ classifications of the importers’ entries were protestable “decisions” under 19 U.S.C. 1514. View "ARP Materials, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

INVT alleged that the importation and sale of personal devices, such as smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets, infringed INVT's patents. An ALJ determined that the accused devices did not infringe claims 3 and 4 of the 590 patent and claims 1 and 2 of the 439 patent and that INVT had failed to meet the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement as to those claims.The International Trade Commission affirmed the finding of no 19 U.S.C. 1337 (section 337) violation. The Federal Circuit affirmed the determination with respect to the 439 patent because INVT failed to show infringement and the existence of a domestic industry. The 439 patent relates to wireless communication systems, specifically an improvement to adaptive modulation and coding, which is a technique used to transmit signals in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system. The asserted 439 claims are drawn to “capability” but for infringement purposes, a computer-implemented claim drawn to a functional capability requires some showing that the accused computer-implemented device is programmed or otherwise configured, without modification, to perform the claimed function when in operation. INVT failed to establish that the accused devices, when put into operation, will ever perform the particular functions recited in the asserted claims. The determination with respect to the 590 patent is moot based on the patent’s March 2022 expiration. View "INVT SPE LLC v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

Commerce initiated a second administrative review of antidumping duties for certain passenger-vehicle and light-truck tires from China and selected two mandatory respondents, Junhon and Haohua as “the top two publicly identifiable exporters/producers of passenger vehicle and light truck tires sold to the United States.” Haohua withdrew. Commerce investigated only Junhong. Commerce issued its Preliminary Results and applied an individual dumping margin of 73.63%, which was then designated as the rate for all of the exporters and producers. In its Final Results. Commerce continued to use only Junhong, for its investigation but reduced the weighted-average dumping margin to 64.57%. The Trade Court held that Commerce’s use of a sole mandatory respondent was a reasonable exercise of agency discretion and sustained Commerce’s decision to exclude Thai import data from India, Indonesia, and South Korea when determining surrogate values for Junhong. The Federal Circuit vacated. Commerce erred in restricting its examination to only one exporter/producer. The statute calls for all respondents to be individually investigated unless the large number makes separate reviews impracticable. This statutory “exception” authorizes the review of a smaller number of exporters or producers than have requested review. Commerce has not demonstrated that it was reasonable to review a single exporter or producer when multiple have requested review and to calculate the all-others rate based on only one respondent. View "Y.C. Rubber Co.(North America), LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

Carter served on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1979-1980; he was identified as having damaged a government vehicle. According to the military police (MP), Carter became combative during his apprehension and struck an MP. Another MP then struck Carter in the head with his nightstick, resulting in an in-service head injury. Carter has residuals of a traumatic brain injury due to the incident. In 1981, Carter filed a VA claim seeking benefits for his head injury. The regional office denied his claim, Under 38 C.F.R. 3.301(a), service connection may be granted only when a disability was incurred or aggravated in the line of duty “and not the result of the veteran’s own willful misconduct.” The office concluded Carter’s own action “was the proximate cause of his injuries.”The Board of Veterans’ Appeals reopened the matter in 2014. After the regional office completed additional fact-finding on remand, the Board concluded that Carter’s combative behavior during his arrest “represent[ed] deliberate or intentional wrongdoing on the part of [Carter] and reckless disregard of its probable consequences,” and that the MP’s use of force in response “reasonably f[ell] within the realm of ‘probable consequences.'” The Veterans Court and Federal Circuit affirmed. The Board applied the correct legal standard in determining that Carter’s injury was the result of his willful misconduct. View "Carter v. McDonough" on Justia Law

BMI’s 096 patent is generally directed to a method and apparatus for conformal radiation therapy of tumors using a pre-determined radiation dose. To account for the three-dimensionality of tumors, the gantry of a radiation machine—which houses the radiation beam—rotates around a patient to irradiate the tumor from different angles. The gantry uses a multileaf collimator to narrow the radiation beam and conform it to the shape of the tumor. The 096 patent purports to improve upon prior art by computing an optimal radiation beam arrangement that maximizes radiation of a tumor while minimizing radiation of healthy tissue.The Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in two inter partes reviews, found that a person having ordinary skill in the art would have had formal computer programming experience. Elekta’s expert had that experience; BMI’s did not. The Board accordingly discounted BMI’s expert testimony and determined Elekta had proven that challenged claims 1, 43, 44, and 46 were unpatentable as obvious. Before filing an appeal, BMI finally canceled claim 1 during an ex parte reexamination. The Federal Circuit affirmed unpatentability determinations with respect to the other claims as supported by substantial evidence regarding the level of skill in the art and each of the remaining Graham factors. View "Best Medical International, Inc. v. Elekta Inc.," on Justia Law

Killian’s application relates to a system “for determining eligibility for Social Security Disability Insurance [SSDI] benefits through a computer network.” This process entails looking up information from a Federal Social Security database and a state database containing records for patients receiving treatment for developmental disabilities or mental illness. For those patients identified in the state database as meeting certain criteria but not currently receiving SSDI benefits, the method determines whether the patient is entitled to SSDI benefits.The examiner rejected all pending claims of the application under 35 U.S.C. 101, as directed to the abstract idea of “determining eligibility for social security disability insurance” benefits and lacking additional elements amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea because the additional elements were simply generic recitations of generic computer functionalities. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board and Federal Circuit affirmed. The essential steps recited by claim 1—the “selecting” and “determining” limitations—can be performed in the human mind and are “an abstract mental process.” The remaining steps were merely directed to data gathering or data output and were appropriately categorized as “insignificant extra-solution activity” or “primitive computer operations found in any computer system” “which do not integrate the processes into a ‘practical application,’ and which do not recite an ‘inventive concept.’” View "In Re Killian" on Justia Law