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

Top Brand and Cozy Comfort are competitors in the market for oversized hooded sweatshirts. Cozy Comfort owns a design patent (D788 patent) and two trademarks for "THE COMFY" related to blanket throws. Top Brand sought a declaratory judgment of noninfringement of the design patent, while Cozy Comfort counterclaimed for infringement of both the design patent and trademarks. The jury found in favor of Cozy Comfort, determining that Top Brand had infringed both the design patent and the trademarks, and awarded Cozy Comfort $15.4 million for patent infringement and $3.08 million for trademark infringement.The United States District Court for the District of Arizona denied Top Brand's motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) and entered judgment based on the jury's verdict. Top Brand then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.The Federal Circuit held that the principles of prosecution history disclaimer apply to design patents. The court found that Top Brand was entitled to JMOL of noninfringement of the design patent because the accused design fell within the scope of the subject matter surrendered during prosecution. The court also concluded that substantial evidence did not support the jury’s verdict of trademark infringement. Consequently, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of JMOL and found in favor of Top Brand on both the design patent and trademark infringement claims. View "Top Brand LLC v. Cozy Comfort Co." on Justia Law

Shockwave Medical, Inc. owns U.S. Patent No. 8,956,371, which is directed to a method for treating atherosclerosis using intravascular lithotripsy (IVL). Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. (CSI) filed an inter partes review (IPR) petition challenging all 17 claims of the '371 patent as obvious over various prior art combinations. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) found claims 1-4 and 6-17 unpatentable as obvious but upheld the patentability of claim 5.The Board's decision was appealed by Shockwave regarding claims 1-4 and 6-17, and cross-appealed by CSI regarding claim 5. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. Shockwave argued that the Board improperly relied on applicant admitted prior art (AAPA) and erred in its claim construction and factual findings. CSI argued that the Board failed to consider the combined teachings of the prior art in its analysis of claim 5.The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's determination that claims 1-4 and 6-17 were unpatentable as obvious. The court found that the Board properly used AAPA as evidence of general background knowledge and that the Board's claim construction and factual findings were supported by substantial evidence. The court also found that Shockwave's secondary considerations evidence did not outweigh the evidence of obviousness.Regarding CSI's cross-appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed the Board's determination that claim 5 was not shown to be unpatentable. The court found that the Board failed to consider the combined teachings of the prior art and that the placement of electrodes as claimed in claim 5 would have been a routine design choice for an ordinarily skilled artisan.In conclusion, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's decision on claims 1-4 and 6-17 and reversed the decision on claim 5, finding it unpatentable as obvious. View "Shockwave Medical, Inc. v. Cardiovascular Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (collectively, Janssen) sued Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. (Teva) in 2018, alleging infringement of Janssen’s U.S. Patent No. 9,439,906, which describes dosing regimens for long-acting injectable antipsychotic medications. Teva admitted to infringement but contested the patent’s validity, arguing that all claims were invalid for obviousness and some for indefiniteness.The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey held a bench trial and ruled that Teva had not proven the claims invalid. Teva appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s rejection of the indefiniteness challenge but vacated the obviousness ruling, remanding for further proceedings. On remand, the district court again found that Teva had not proven the claims invalid for obviousness, leading to Teva’s current appeal.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the district court’s decision. The court held that Teva did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine or modify the prior art to achieve the claimed invention with a reasonable expectation of success. The court also rejected Teva’s argument for a presumption of obviousness based on overlapping ranges, finding that the specific combination of dosages and timing in the claimed regimen was not sufficiently addressed by the prior art. The court upheld the district court’s findings on the lack of motivation to combine references and the lack of reasonable expectation of success, as well as the non-obviousness of the claims related to renal impairment and particle size. View "JANSSEN PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS USA, INC. " on Justia Law

Egenera, Inc. alleged that Cisco Systems, Inc. infringed its U.S. Patent No. 7,231,430, which describes a digitalized processing platform for deploying virtual systems through configuration commands. The patent aims to improve conventional server systems by allowing virtual management of processing resources without physical rewiring. Egenera claimed that Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) infringed claims 1, 3-5, and 7-8 of the patent. The district court granted summary judgment of noninfringement for claims 1 and 5 and, following a jury trial, entered judgment of noninfringement for claims 3 and 7.The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts found that Cisco's UCS did not infringe the asserted claims. The court granted summary judgment of noninfringement for claims 1 and 5, concluding that the UCS CPUs did not emulate Ethernet functionality as required by the claims. The jury found noninfringement for claims 3 and 7, and the district court denied Egenera's post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) or a new trial.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the district court's decisions. The appellate court agreed that Egenera failed to present sufficient evidence to show that the UCS CPUs emulated Ethernet functionality, as required by claims 1 and 5. The court also found that substantial evidence supported the jury's verdict of noninfringement for claims 3 and 7, particularly regarding the network topology limitation. Additionally, the appellate court upheld the district court's denial of Egenera's motion for a new trial, finding no abuse of discretion in the court's handling of jury instructions, evidentiary rulings, and closing arguments. View "EGENERA, INC. v. CISCO SYSTEMS, INC. " on Justia Law

Eye Therapies, LLC owns the '742 patent, which describes a method to reduce eye redness using a low-concentration dose of brimonidine. The independent claims of the patent specify that the method consists essentially of administering brimonidine at certain concentrations. During patent prosecution, the examiner initially rejected the claims for being anticipated by prior art, specifically U.S. Patent No. 6,242,442 (Dean), which disclosed the use of brimonidine in combination with another active ingredient, brinzolamide. The applicant amended the claims to replace "comprising" with "consisting essentially of" and argued that the claimed methods did not require any other active ingredients besides brimonidine. The examiner allowed the amended claims based on this representation.The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted an inter partes review on petition by Slayback Pharma, LLC and concluded that all challenged claims were unpatentable. The Board interpreted the phrase "consisting essentially of" to allow the inclusion of additional active ingredients that do not materially affect the basic and novel properties of the invention. Based on this construction, the Board found that the prior art taught or suggested each limitation of the challenged claims and that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining the references.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the Board's claim construction. The court held that the phrase "consisting essentially of" in the '742 patent should be interpreted to exclude the use of active ingredients other than brimonidine, based on the prosecution history. The court vacated the Board's obviousness finding and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with the corrected claim construction. View "EYE THERAPIES, LLC v. SLAYBACK PHARMA LLC " on Justia Law

Annette R. Deal served in the U.S. Navy and Army and filed a claim for compensation for Cushing’s syndrome and a nervous condition in 1991, which was denied in 1992. She received treatment within the appeal period, resulting in a 1993 medical record being added to her file. The VA did not address whether this record met the requirements to be considered new and material evidence until 2021. Mrs. Deal did not appeal the 1992 decision. She filed another claim in 1995, which was partially granted, and a third claim in 2003, leading to a 2016 decision granting service connection for her psychiatric disorder with an effective date of August 1, 2003.The Board of Veterans’ Appeals granted an effective date of March 10, 1995, for her psychiatric disorder, ruling that new and material evidence was presented in 1997. However, it denied an effective date of October 1991, ruling that the 1993 record was not material. Mrs. Deal appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which affirmed the Board’s decision, finding a plausible basis for ruling that the 1993 record was not material.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. Mrs. Deal argued that the VA’s failure to address the 1993 record before the 2016 decision meant her 1991 claim remained open, entitling her to an earlier effective date. The court disagreed, stating that the VA’s delay does not automatically entitle a claimant to an earlier effective date unless the evidence is determined to be new and material. The court affirmed the Veterans Court’s decision, holding that the 1993 record was not material and the 1992 decision was final. View "Deal v. Collins" on Justia Law

Future Link Systems, LLC entered into a license agreement with MediaTek, Inc. in 2019, which stipulated that MediaTek would pay Future Link a lump sum if Future Link filed a lawsuit against Realtek Semiconductor Corporation. Future Link subsequently filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) accusing Realtek of patent infringement. During the litigation, Future Link settled with a third party and informed Realtek, leading Realtek to file a motion for sanctions against Future Link before the administrative law judge (ALJ).The ALJ expressed concerns about the legality of the agreement between Future Link and MediaTek but ultimately denied Realtek's motion for sanctions, concluding that the agreement did not influence Future Link's decision to file the complaint. Future Link then withdrew its complaint and moved to terminate the investigation, which the ALJ granted. The ITC terminated the investigation when no petition for review was filed. Realtek petitioned the ITC to review the ALJ's order denying sanctions, but the ITC declined and terminated the sanctions proceeding.Realtek appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, seeking an order for Future Link to pay a fine to the Commission. The Federal Circuit concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Realtek's appeal, as the Commission's decision on sanctions was not a "final determination" under 19 U.S.C. § 1337(c) that would affect the exclusion or non-exclusion of articles from entry. The court dismissed the appeal, noting that jurisdiction over such matters likely lies with the district courts, not the Federal Circuit. View "Realtek Semiconductor Corp. v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

In this case, the appellants, a group of German steel companies, challenged the U.S. Department of Commerce's determination of a 22.9 percent antidumping duty on their steel plate products. Commerce applied an adverse inference based on the appellants' failure to provide complete manufacturer information for certain sales by their affiliated reseller, which Commerce deemed necessary for calculating the dumping margin.The U.S. Court of International Trade (Trade Court) sustained Commerce's decision, finding that the appellants did not cooperate to the best of their ability. The Trade Court noted that the appellants failed to provide reasonable alternative forms of the missing information, which could have mitigated the burden of manually retrieving the data. The court suggested that a statistical analysis or randomized sampling could have been a reasonable alternative.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and held that Commerce's request for the missing manufacturer information imposed an unreasonable burden on the appellants. However, the court also found that the appellants did not propose reasonable alternative forms of the missing data as required by statute. Consequently, Commerce's application of adverse facts available was deemed permissible.The Federal Circuit affirmed Commerce's use of the highest non-aberrational net price among the disputed sales to fill the information gap, concluding that this approach was reasonable given the size of the information gap and the need to deter non-cooperation. The court found that Commerce's choice of adverse inference was supported by substantial evidence and in accordance with the law. View "AG DER DILLINGER HUTTENWERKE v. US " on Justia Law

Optis Cellular Technology, LLC, Optis Wireless Technology, LLC, PanOptis Patent Management, LLC, Unwired Planet International Limited, and Unwired Planet, LLC (collectively, “Optis”) sued Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Optis asserted that various Apple products implementing the LTE standard infringed five of its standard-essential patents. The jury found Apple infringed certain claims of the asserted patents and awarded $506,200,000 in damages. Apple moved for a new trial, arguing the jury did not hear evidence regarding Optis’s obligation to license the patents on FRAND terms. The district court granted a new trial on damages, and the jury awarded $300,000,000 in the retrial.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court vacated both the infringement and second damages judgments, remanding for a new trial on infringement and damages. The court dismissed Optis’s cross-appeal to reinstate the original damages verdict. The court also reversed the district court’s findings that claims 6 and 7 of the ’332 patent are not directed to an abstract idea under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and that claim 1 of the ’557 patent does not invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6. The court affirmed the district court’s construction of claim 8 of the ’833 patent. Additionally, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion by admitting the Apple-Qualcomm settlement agreement and related expert testimony into evidence.The Federal Circuit held that the single infringement question on the verdict form violated Apple’s right to a unanimous verdict, as it did not ensure all jurors agreed on the same patent being infringed. The court also determined that claims 6 and 7 of the ’332 patent are directed to an abstract idea and remanded for further analysis under Alice step two. The court found that “selecting unit” in claim 1 of the ’557 patent invokes § 112 ¶ 6 and remanded for further proceedings. View "OPTIS WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY, LLC v. APPLE INC. " on Justia Law

Anthony Stuart, a Navy veteran, appealed a decision by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) that denied him credit for his military service in computing his civilian retirement annuity. Stuart served in the Navy during three periods between 1974 and 1991 and was placed on the Permanent Disability Retirement List in 1994 with a 60% disability rating. He later entered federal civilian service and retired in 2015. Stuart did not waive his military retired pay to receive credit for his military service toward his Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) annuity.The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) initially decided that Stuart’s military service was not creditable toward his FERS annuity because he was receiving military retired pay. OPM explained that by statute, Stuart could not receive both military retired pay and FERS credit for his military service unless his military retired pay was awarded for specific reasons, which did not apply to him. Stuart sought reconsideration, but OPM affirmed its decision. Stuart then appealed to the MSPB, where an administrative judge upheld OPM’s decision, and the full Board affirmed, modifying the initial decision to clarify the analysis.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the MSPB’s decision. The court held that under 5 U.S.C. § 8411(c)(2), Stuart’s military service could not be credited toward his FERS annuity because he was receiving military retired pay and did not meet any statutory exceptions. The court rejected Stuart’s argument that his military retired pay, calculated based on his disability percentage, was not “based on” his military service. The court found that the statute clearly barred double crediting of military service for both military retired pay and a civilian retirement annuity. View "STUART v. OPM " on Justia Law