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

When a Colorado court ordered Colorado Health Insurance Cooperative into liquidation, the government owed Colorado Health $24,489,799 for reinsurance debts under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), 42 U.S.C. 18061. The reinsurance program, which only lasted three years, collected yearly payments from all insurers and made payments to insurers of particularly costly individuals that year. Colorado Health owed the Department of Health and Human Services $42,000,000 for debts under ACA’s risk adjustment program, which charges insurers of individuals who had below-average actuarial risk and pays insurers of individuals who had above-average actuarial risk. The government attempted to leapfrog other insolvency creditors through offset, rather than paying its debt and making a claim against Colorado Health’s estate as an insolvency creditor.The Federal Circuit affirmed the Claims Court in ordering the government to pay. Neither state nor federal law affords the government a right to offset. Colorado law concerning the liquidation of insurance companies is limited to offsetting debts and credits in contractual obligations. ACA does not preempt Colorado insolvency law; a “Netting Regulation” is directed to an ancillary issue, payment convenience. The government has not shown a “significant conflict between an identifiable federal policy or interest and the operation of state law.” View "Conway v. United States" on Justia Law

Following two remands from the Trade Court in an antidumping duty investigation concerning certain corrosion-resistant steel products from India, the Department of Commerce granted Uttam a duty drawback adjustment under 19 U.S.C. 1677a(c)(1)(B) that resulted in no dumping margin. Commerce applied “circumstance of sale” adjustments to remedy the imbalance in the comparison between normal value and export price or constructed export price by removing unrecovered paid and exempted duties from constructed value or home market price and adding the per-unit amount of import duties]to normal value that was added to U.S. price. The Trade Court affirmed.The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting a challenge to the propriety of the first remand to Commerce. It makes no difference whether the imported inputs that qualified for a drawback were actually incorporated into goods sold in the exporter’s domestic market because the Indian government credited the drawback to the quantity of goods that were in fact exported, whatever the source of the inputs used to produce foreign goods. The statute requires an upward adjustment to “export price and constructed export price” based on the drawback that occurred “by reason of the exportation of the subject merchandise to the United States.” The entire drawback was allowed “by reason of the exportation.” View "Uttam Galva Steels Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

In 2011, the Navy published a job announcement for an Event Forum Project Chief, a full-time, permanent, GS-13/14-grade position. Two candidates—Beck and Wible—were certified as qualified for the position. Captain Payton selected Wible. Beck, had been in active Navy service from 1984 until his retirement in 2005 and had been promoted through a series of jobs relevant to the posted position. In 2001, Beck earned a bachelor’s degree in business with a GPA of 3.91; he earned a master’s degree in Human Resource Management and Development in 2002. In 2006, Beck rejoined the Navy workforce as a civilian Special-Events Planning Officer (SEPO), a GS-13-1 grade position. Beck had trained Wible. Payton had apparently first shown animosity toward Beck during a meeting in 2010.Beck filed a formal EEO action alleging discrimination based on race, gender, age, and disability, which engendered a retaliatory and hostile work environment. Beck resigned and unsuccessfully eventually sought corrective action from the Merit Systems Protection Board under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.The Federal Circuit reversed in part. Preselection of the successful candidate can buttress an agency’s personnel decision to hire a less qualified candidate only when the preselection is not tainted by an unlawful discriminatory intent. The Board erred in finding that Beck’s non-selection would have occurred regardless of his prior military service as required under 38 U.S.C. 4311(c)(1). View "Beck v. Department of the Navy" on Justia Law

GSA leased a building from NOAA’s predecessor; the annual rent includes agreed “[b]ase year taxes.” GSA must compensate NOAA for “any increase in real estate taxes during the lease term over the amount established as the base year taxes” and defines “real estate taxes” as “only those taxes, which are assessed against the building and/or the land upon which the building is located, without regard to benefit to the property, for the purpose of funding general Government services. Real estate taxes shall not include, without limitation, general and/or special assessments, business improvement district assessments, or any other present or future taxes or governmental charges that are imposed upon the Lessor or assessed against the building and/or the land upon which the building is located.In 2016, NOAA asked GSA to reimburse it for the Stormwater/Chesapeake Bay Water Quality tax, the Washington Suburban Transit Commission tax, the Clean Water Act Fee, and a Supplemental Education Tax. All four appear on the consolidated tax bill. The clean water tax, effective in 2013, is collected for the Watershed Protection and Restoration Fund, “in the same manner as County real property taxes and [has] the same priority, rights, and bear[s] the same interest and penalties, and [is] enforced in the same manner as County real property taxes.”GSA denied the claim. The Civilian Board of Contract Appeals held that the lease provision excludes all taxes enacted after the date of the lease, even if those taxes meet expressly stated criteria for being a real estate tax. The Federal Circuit reversed. Under ordinary interpretive principles, a real estate tax qualifies under the Lease provision whenever it satisfies the three criteria of the first sentence. View "NOAA Maryland, LLC v. General Services Administration" on Justia Law

New Vision sued SG in the federal district court in Nevada. SG then filed Patent Trial and Appeal Board petitions. The Board declined to respect the forum selection agreement in the parties’ license agreement, which referred to “exclusive” jurisdiction in the appropriate federal or state court in the state of Nevada, and proceeded to a final decision, finding the claims at issue as well as proposed substitute claims, patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101.The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the Board’s decisions for consideration of the forum selection clause in light of its 2019 “Arthrex” decision. Because Arthrex issued after the Board’s final-written decisions and after New Vision sought Board rehearing, New Vision has not waived its Arthrex challenge by raising it for the first time in its opening brief. The Board’s rejection of the parties’ choice of forum is subject to judicial review; section 324(e) does not bar review of Board decisions “separate . . . to the in[stitu]tion decision.” View "New Vision Gaming & Development, Inc. v. SG Gaming, Inc." on Justia Law

Modern telecommunications systems using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offer clients optional features, such as caller-ID, call waiting, multi-line service, and different levels of service quality known as the “codec specification.” Uniloc’s 552 patent is directed to a system and method to police the use of those features, recognizing that the proliferation of intelligent client devices in communication networks requires providers to maintain control over the use of their networks’ features in order to continue generating revenue. To achieve that control, the patented system employs an enforcement mechanism within the provider’s core network through which clients send “signaling messages” for setting up their communication sessions.On inter partes review, The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found certain claims (not including claims 18-22) invalid for obviousness in view of the Kalmanek patent. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the Board’s construction of “intercepting” in the independent claims was erroneous; the claims encompass the situation in which a sending client device intentionally sends a signaling message to the intermediate network entity that performs the interception. Apple failed to show that claim 18 would have been obvious over Kalmanek. View "Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Apple Inc." on Justia Law

PerDiemCo, a Texas LLC, is the assignee of the patents, which relate to electronic logging devices. PerDiemCo’s current sole owner, officer, and employee, Babayi, lives and works in Washington, D.C. PerDiemCo rents office space in Texas, which Babayi has never visited. Trimble and ISE, Trimble’s wholly owned subsidiary, manufacture and sell GPS devices. Trimble, incorporated in Delaware, is headquartered in California. ISE is an Iowa LLC with an Iowa principal place of business.Babayi sent a letter to ISE accusing ISE of using technology covered by PerDiemCo’s patents, stating that PerDiemCo “actively licenc[es]” its patents and listed companies that had entered into nonexclusive licenses after the companies had “collectively spent tens of millions of dollars" on litigation. Babayi offered a nonexclusive license. ISE forwarded the letter to Trimble’s Chief IP Counsel, Brodsky, in Colorado, who explained that Trimble would be PerDiemCo’s contact. Babayi replied that PerDiemCo also believed that Trimble’s products infringed its patents. The parties communicated by letter, telephone, and email at least 22 times before Trimble and ISE sought a declaratory judgment of noninfringement in the Northern District of California. The district court held that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction over PerDiemCo. The Federal Circuit reversed. In patent litigation, communications threatening suit or proposing settlement or patent licenses can establish personal jurisdiction. A broad set of a defendant’s contacts with a forum are relevant to the minimum contacts analysis. Here, the minimum contacts or purposeful availment test was satisfied. View "Trimble Inc. v. PerDiemCo LLC" on Justia Law

Samba asserted infringement of its 668 patent in the Northern District of California. In the Eastern District of Texas, Samba asserted its 356 patent, entitled “Targeting with Television Audience Data Across Multiple Screens,” relating to a system providing a mobile phone user with targeted advertisements, deemed relevant to the user based on data gathered from the user’s television. Both cases were consolidated in the Northern District of California. The Texas court had already construed a disputed term for both patents. The California court adopted that claim construction; Samba stipulated to noninfringement as to the 668 patent.Defendant moved to dismiss on grounds that the asserted claims of the 356 patent are patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. The court denied the motion, finding that the 356 patent “describes systems and methods for addressing barriers to certain types of information exchange between various technological devices, e.g., a television and a smartphone or tablet being used in the same place at the same time.” The court subsequently entered summary judgment of noninfringement.The Federal Circuit reversed the denial of the motion to dismiss, did not reach the issue of infringement, and affirmed the claim construction. Samba’s asserted claims are not directed to an improvement of technology or creation of new computer functionality but are directed to an abstract idea; the claims comprise generic computing components arranged in a conventional manner. Samba’s desired claim construction, covering one-way communication, contradicts the specification. View "Free Stream Media Corp. v. Alphonso Inc." on Justia Law

PacBio’s patents describe methods for sequencing a nucleic acid, such as DNA, using nanopore technology. PacBio sued Oxford for infringement. Before trial, the district court granted PacBio’s motion “to prevent [Oxford] from using ‘pejorative’ terms (such as ‘non-practicing entity,’ ‘NPE,’ and ‘paper patents’), stating “it would be inappropriate to put before the jury evidence or argument about the potential impact of a verdict in favor of PacBio— such as higher prices or slower medical research.”A jury found all asserted claims infringed but also determined that they are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 112 for lack of enablement. The district court upheld the verdict on enablement and denied PacBio’s request for a new trial because of Oxford’s improper opening remarks that included references to the potential applications of its accused products to the then-emerging global COVID-19 crisis. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The record supports the legal conclusion that the disclosures of the patents, even combined with the knowledge of relevant artisans, required undue experimentation to enable the full scope of the relevant claims. The court reasonably denied a new trial, given PacBio’s own conduct and references to COVID-19, and its successful request for no more than curative instructions. View "Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. v. Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

Zinus’s patent is directed to “[a]n assemblable mattress support” that “can be shipped in a compact state with all of its components compactly packed into the headboard.” Cap sought a declaratory judgment that the patent was invalid and not infringed. Zinus counterclaimed, alleging infringement and unfair business practices under California state law. The district court granted summary judgment that claims 1 and 3 were invalid as obvious over prior art. The Federal Circuit vacated. The district court subsequently granted partial summary judgment that claims 1–3 were not invalid, in part because Cap had abandoned the “bed in a box” prior art reference that the court had relied on in its previous determination. Cap stipulated to the entry of a final judgment in favor of Zinus, with $1.1 million in damages and a permanent injunction.Thereafter, Cap discovered evidence (in an unrelated suit) that the deposition testimony of Zinus's then-president had been false concerning the prior art. Cap successfully moved to vacate the judgment and injunction under Rule 60(b)(3), which provides grounds for relief for “fraud . . . , misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party.” The Federal Circuit affirmed. The court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the misrepresentations prevented Cap from fully and fairly presenting its case and that Cap satisfied the due diligence requirement. View "Cap Export, LLC v. Zinus, Inc." on Justia Law