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

Schiedmayer makes and sells celestas, keyboard instruments that resemble small pianos. and is the successor to a line of German companies that have sold keyboard musical instruments under the Schiedmayer name for nearly 300 years. In 1980, Georg Schiedmayer, the owner of Schiedmayer & Soehne, stopped making pianos and renamed the company Schiedmayer GmbH, then briefly entered into a joint venture with Ibach. The “Schiedmayer” trademark was not sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred to Ibach or any other entity. but Ibach entered into an agreement with Kawai under which Kawai produced pianos carrying the Schiedmayer name. Georg’s widow, Elianne, became the sole owner of Schiedmayer, and, in 1995, founded a new company that became Schiedmayer Celesta.In 2002, the owner of Piano Factory retail outlets, believing that the “Schiedmayer” mark had been abandoned for pianos, acquired the domain name “schiedmayer.com.” The Patent and Trademark Office issued a registration for the “Schiedmaryer” mark in 2007. Piano Factory assigned the registration to Sweet 16, which purchased “no-name” pianos from China and affixed labels on them, including the Schiedmayer label. Schiedmayer Celesta filed a cancellation petition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, citing the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1052(a). The Federal Circuit affirmed the cancellation of the mark. All of the relevant factors—similarity of the goods, recognition among particular consumers, and intent in using the mark—support the Board’s finding that the name was sufficiently well known among consumers of Sweet 16’s products that a connection with Schiedmayer would be presumed. View "Piano Factory Group, Inc. v. Schiedmayer Celesta GmbH" on Justia Law

In an antidumping duty investigation on U.S. imports of cold-drawn mechanical tubing from India, the Department of Commerce rejected Goodluck’s submission of supplemental data and relied on “adverse facts available” under 19 U.S.C. 1677e(b) for its less-than-fair-value analysis, which resulted in an antidumping margin of 33.8% ad valorem applicable to Goodluck’s imports. The Court of International Trade agreed with Goodluck that its submission was a permissible correction of a minor clerical error and that it was entitled to submit supplemental information up to the day of verification. Commerce, under protest, conducted a new less-than-fair-value analysis resulting in a zero-percent antidumping margin for Goodluck, which theTrade Court affirmed.The Federal Circuit reversed. Commerce’s initial determination—rejecting Goodluck’s supplemental submission on grounds that it constituted new factual information and not a minor or clerical correction of the record, and that the submission was unverifiable as it was submitted on the eve of verification—was supported by substantial evidence and not otherwise contrary to law. Goodluck’s revisions were a systemic change to the entire reported database. The revisions were not singular, such as a missing word or an error in arithmetic. View "Goodluck India Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

T cells, white blood cells that contribute to the immune response, have naturally occurring receptors on their surfaces that facilitate their attack on target cells (such as cancer cells) by recognizing and binding an antigen, i.e., a structure on a target cell’s surface. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy involves isolating a patient’s T cells; reprogramming those T cells to produce a specific, targeted receptor (a CAR) on each T cell’s surface; and infusing the patient with the reprogrammed cells. Juno’s patent relates to a nucleic acid polymer encoding a three-part CAR for a T cell. It claims priority to a provisional application filed in 2002, at “the birth of the CART field.” Kite’s YESCARTA® is a “therapy in which a patient’s T cells are engineered to express a [CAR] to target the antigen CD19, a protein expressed on the cell surface of B-cell lymphomas and leukemias, and redirect the T cells to kill cancer cells.”Juno sued, alleging infringement. The district court held that the claims were not invalid for lack of written description or enablement, the patent’s certificate of correction was not invalid, and Juno was entitled to $1,200,322,551.50 in damages. The Federal Circuit reversed. No reasonable jury could find the patent’s written description sufficiently demonstrates that the inventors possessed the full scope of the claimed invention. View "Juno Therapeutics, Inc v. Kite Pharma, Inc." on Justia Law

USR sued Apple for infringement of patents otherwise directed to similar technology, securing electronic payment transactions. The patents “address the need for technology that allows consumers to conveniently make payment-card [e.g., credit card] transactions without a magnetic-stripe reader and with a high degree of security.”The district court found all claims of four asserted patents ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. The Federal Circuit affirmed. All claims of the asserted patents are directed to an abstract idea and contain no additional elements that transform them into a patent-eligible application of the abstract idea. Applying the Supreme Court’s “Alice” analysis, the court stated that sending data to a third party as opposed to the merchant is an abstract idea and cannot serve as an inventive concept, as is authenticating a user using conventional tools and generating and transmitting that authentication—without “improv[ing] any underlying technology.” Nothing in the claims is directed to a new authentication technique; rather, the claims are directed to combining longstanding, known authentication techniques to yield expected additional amounts of security. View "Universal Secure Registry LLC v. Apple Inc." on Justia Law

MLC sued Micron for infringing certain claims of a patent, titled “Electrically Alterable Non-Volatile Memory with N-bits Per Cell,” describing methods of programming multi-level cells. The district court excluded certain opinions of MLC’s damages expert.On interlocutory appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed orders precluding MLC’s damages expert from characterizing certain license agreements as reflecting a 0.25% royalty, opining on a reasonable royalty rate when MLC failed to produce key documents and information directed to its damages theory when requested prior to expert discovery, and opining on the royalty base and royalty rate where the expert failed to apportion for non-patented features. View "MLC Intellectual Property, LLC v. Micron Technology, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2013, Bullock, a civilian employed by the Army, received a formal letter of reprimand from her supervisor. Bullock filed an EEO claim alleging sex discrimination and retaliation. In proceedings before the EEOC’s mediation program, Bullock was represented by her attorney, Elliott; the Army was represented by its management official Shipley, and attorney Lynch. According to Bullock, the parties reached agreement as to seven non-monetary demands on July 29 and reached an oral agreement regarding her monetary demands on August 27, 2015. The mediating administrative judge sent an email to the parties asking for the “agency’s understanding of the provisions of the settlement agreement” and noting that, “[o]nce we confirm that the parties are in complete agreement, the agency can begin work on the written settlement agreement.”. No written settlement agreement was executed. In September, the Army “rescinded its settlement offer.” Bullock continued to press her claims before the EEOC for a year, then filed a breach of contract claim regarding an oral settlement agreement.The Federal Circuit reversed the dismissal of the complaint, rejecting an argument that EEOC and Army regulations, requiring that settlement agreements be in writing, preclude enforcement of oral settlement agreements. The court remanded for a determination of whether the representative of the Army had the authority to enter a settlement agreement and whether the parties actually reached an agreement. View "Bullock v. United States" on Justia Law

DET sued Google for infringing its “Tab Patents,” which are directed to systems and methods for displaying and navigating three-dimensional electronic spreadsheets by implementing user-customizable “notebook tabs” on the spreadsheet interface. In 2018, the Federal Circuit reversed a holding that the claims were patent ineligible. On remand, the district court granted Google summary judgment of noninfringement, premised on its construction of the term “three-dimensional spreadsheet” recited in the preamble of the asserted claims. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the preamble is limiting and adopting the district court’s construction of that term. DET did not argue that the accused product infringes under the district court’s construction. View "Data Engine Technologies LLC v. Google LLC" on Justia Law

Larson served on active duty for training in the Navy Reserves in 1988 and on active duty in the Navy, 1989-1993. He gained a substantial amount of weight before, during, and after his active service. In 2009, Larson filed a claim for service connection for multiple conditions, including obesity and dysmetabolic syndrome (DMS). The VA denied the claims in 2010. The Board affirmed that denial in 2016, holding that neither DMS nor obesity was a disability because neither condition is ratable under the VA Schedule of Rating Disabilities. The Veterans Court affirmed the denial of service connection for DMS and obesity, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to review a Board determination of what constitutes a disability under 38 U.S.C. 1110 because such inquiry amounted to a review of the rating schedule, prohibited by 38 U.S.C. 7252(b).The Federal Circuit reversed, noting that it has previously held that the Veterans Court has jurisdiction to review a Board determination that a claimed condition did not constitute a disability for purposes of section 1110. Larson seeks only to establish a service connection for his conditions and is not asking the Veterans Court to invalidate or revise any portion of the rating schedule. View "Larson v. McDonough" on Justia Law

In 2017 the Army issued a logistics support services solicitation, to award several indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts—each covering services among six geographic commands, plus Afghanistan. Contracting officers often must discuss deficiencies and significant weaknesses in proposals with offerors before proposals are final. When an offeror proposes a price that is unreasonably high, the government must discuss that unreasonableness with the offeror, potentially giving it a chance to revise its proposal. If the price is too high yet not unreasonable, the government need not discuss it. As a result. an offeror whose initial proposal is unreasonably priced may fare better than one whose is not. Six firms sought to perform the Army’s logistics work. DynCorp lost. Its prices were higher than the others; its proposed technical approach was worse. After balancing four proposal-evaluation factors, none of which DynCorp was best on, the Army went with other offerors.The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of DynCorp’s bid protest, rejecting an argument that the price it gave the Army was so high as to be unreasonable—and that the Army should have concluded as much and given it the opportunity to revise its proposed approach. The court found no error in the Army’s price-reasonableness analysis. View "DynCorp International, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

CommScope sued Dali, alleging infringement of five of CommScope’s patents relating to telecommunications technology. Dali counterclaimed, alleging CommScope infringed two of Dali’s patents also relating to telecommunications technology. One of Dali’s asserted patents, the 521 patent, is titled “System and Method for Digital Memorized Predistortion for Wireless Communication.” This technology generally relates to wireless communications with portable equipment and handsets, such as mobile phones. Such devices often include a power amplifier to boost the signal. However, amplification can cause unintended distortions to the signal. The 521 patent resolves this problem through the use of a feedback loop and lookup tables.The district court entered judgment on the jury’s verdict of infringement, no invalidity, and damages for both CommScope and Dali. The Federal Circuit reversed with respect to the 521 patent and otherwise affirmed without opinion. Substantial evidence does not support the jury’s finding that CommScope’s FlexWave infringes Dali’s 521 patent. Dali failed to present evidence proving that the FlexWave meets the district court’s construction of the claim term “switching a controller off.” View "CommScope Technologies LLC v. Dali Wireless, Inc." on Justia Law