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

In 2015, CPA’s predecessor was awarded Defense contracts to provide stevedoring and terminal services along the Eastern Seaboard, including Charleston. The contracts incorporated a Federal Acquisition Regulation provision that gave the government options to extend the term of the agreement for up to four one-year periods by giving “preliminary written notice of its intent to extend at least 60 days before the contract expire[d].” Such notice did not obligate the government to exercise the option. After the preliminary notice, the government was required to exercise the option itself within 15 days of the expiration date. On June 15, 2016, the government exercised the first-year option.During the extension period, CPA purchased its predecessor and began seeking revised pricings, asserting that it might default because the contracts were not profitable. On January 31, 2017, the government’s contracting officer sent an email to CPA, stating: The Government intends to exercise options at awarded rates … expects [CPA] to continue performing per the terms. A May 3, 2017, formal letter to CPA, stated the government's intent to extend the contract through 30 June 2018. CPA responded that the notice was untimely. The government pointed to the January 31 email as the preliminary written notice. In July 2017, CPA sought a declaration that the contract had expired and additional money for its performance under protest. A contracting officer denied the claims. The Board of Contracts Appeals and the Federal Circuit affirmed. The government satisfied the preliminary notice requirement; the email unambiguously provided preliminary written notice of the government’s intent to extend at least 60 days before the contract expired on May 1, 2017. View "Cooper/Ports America, LLC v. Secretary of Defense" on Justia Law

Caquelin's land was subject to a railroad easement. The Surface Transportation Board granted the railroad permission to abandon the line unless the process (16 U.S.C. 1247(d)) for considering the use of the easement for a public recreational trail was invoked. That process was invoked. The Board issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment (NITU), preventing effectuation of the abandonment approval and blocking the ending of the easement for 180 days, during which the railroad could try to reach an agreement with two entities that expressed interest in the easement for trail use. The NITU expired without such an agreement. The railroad completed its abandonment three months later.Caquelin sued, alleging that a taking occurred when the government, by issuing the NITU, prevented the termination of the easement during the 180-day period. Following a remand, the Claims Court again held that a taking had occurred. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting the contention that the multi-factor approach adopted for government-created flooding in the Supreme Court’s 2012 “Arkansas Game” decision displaced the categorical-taking analysis adopted in Federal Circuit precedents for a NITU that blocks termination of an easement. The categorical taking analysis is applicable even when that NITU expires without a trail-use agreement. A NITU does not effect a taking if, even without a NITU, the railroad would not have abandoned its line during the period of the NITU. Here, the evidence permits a finding that abandonment would have occurred during the NITU period if the NITU had not issued. View "Caquelin v. United States" on Justia Law

Odyssey filed the 678 patent application in 2004. After several procedural disputes and appeals, the Patent Board reversed an examiner’s rejections. The Technology Center Director issued an “examiner’s request for rehearing.” Odyssey did not address the merits, objecting to the procedural propriety of the request, and requesting reconsideration. Odyssey eventually made merits arguments, but without waiting for the Board’s decision, it sought judicial review.Odyssey filed its 603 application in 2006. After a final rejection of all claims, Odyssey appealed and filed a petition demanding that the examiner make certain evidence part of the written record and supplement his responses. The examiner further explained his decision. The Technology Center Director dismissed the petition as moot. Odyssey believed that the examiner’s answer to its appeal brief included new grounds for rejection. The Technology Center Director dismissed that assertion. Rather than filing a brief replying to the examiner’s answer, Odyssey sought judicial review.The PTO amended its rules of practice in ex parte appeals; final rules were published in November 2011, applicable to all ex parte appeals filed on or after January 23, 2012. Odyssey challenged the legality of these amendments.The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of all three claims. In the first two counts, Odyssey was challenging actions not yet final before the Board; the Board could provide Odyssey with an adequate remedy, and if not, Odyssey had remedies under 35 U.S.C. 141 or 145. Count III was untimely under 28 U.S.C. 2401, the six-year statute of limitations for a facial APA challenge, which runs from the date the regulations were published. The complaint was filed in January 2018. View "Odyssey Logistics & Technology Corp. v. Iancu" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs each own a wind farm that was put into service in 2012. Each applied for a federal cash grant based on specified energy project costs, under section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009. The Treasury Department awarded each company less than requested, rejecting as unjustified the full amounts of certain development fees included in the submitted cost bases. Each company sued. The government counterclaimed, alleging that it had actually overpaid the companies.The Claims Court and Federal Circuit ruled in favor of the government. Section 1603 provides for government reimbursement to qualified applicants of a portion of the “expense” of putting certain energy-generating property into service as measured by the “basis” of such property; “basis” is defined as “the cost of such property,” 26 U.S.C. 1012(a). To support its claim, each company was required to prove that the dollar amounts of the development fees claimed reliably measured the actual development costs for the windfarms. Findings that the amounts stated in the development agreements did not reliably indicate the development costs were sufficiently supported by the absence in the agreements of any meaningful description of the development services to be provided and the fact that all, or nearly all, of the development services had been completed by the time the agreements were executed. View "California Ridge Wind Energy, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

McRO’s patent describes a method for automatically generating animations, with a three-dimensional appearance, depicting lip movements and facial expressions. The method uses two basic building blocks: “phonemes” and “morph targets.” A “phoneme,” the patent explains, is “the smallest unit of speech, and corresponds to a single sound.” A “morph target” is a model of a mouth position—one “reference model” displays a “neutral mouth position,” while other models display “other mouth positions, each corresponding to a different phoneme or set of phonemes.”McRO sued several video game developers alleging infringement of three method claims of the patent. The district court held the claims invalid for ineligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101, but the Federal Circuit reversed. On remand, the district court ultimately held that the developers were entitled to summary judgment of noninfringement because the accused products do not practice the claimed methods and to summary judgment of invalidity because the specification fails to enable the full scope of the claims.The Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment of noninfringement, agreeing with the developers that the claim term “morph weight set” requires three-dimensional vectors. The court vacated the judgment of invalidity and remanded for further proceedings in light of, among other things, the developers’ offer to withdraw their counterclaims without prejudice. View "McRO, Inc. v. Bandai Namco Games America, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2003, Electric Boat (EB) and the Navy entered into a contract for the construction of up to six nuclear-powered submarines. The Contract includes a “Change-of-Law Clause,” which provides for a price adjustment in the event that compliance with a new federal law, or a change to existing federal laws or regulations, directly increases or decreases EB’s costs of performance.In September 2004, OSHA issued a new regulation, "Fire Protection in Shipyard Employment." In February 2005, EB submitted a Notification of Change, stating that it anticipated that compliance would result in a cost increase exceeding $125,000 per ship. In June 2007, EB sought price adjustments across all six submarines. The Navy challenged the calculations. In April 2009, EB submitted a revised cost proposal. In May 2011, the Contracting Officer formally denied an adjustment of the contract price, citing discrepancies between the proposal and documents related to the OSHA change.. The memorandum stated that if EB decided to further pursue the adjustment, it should file “Requests for Equitable Adjustment’” by June 3, 2011. In December 2012, EB filed a certified claim, seeking a price adjustment. The Contracting Officer, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, and the Federal Circuit concluded that the claim was barred by the six-year limitations period, 41 U.S.C. 7103(a)(4)(A). EB knew of its claim by February 2005 and suffered some injury by August 2005. View "Electric Boat Corp. v. Secretary of the Navy" on Justia Law

ESIP’s patent relates to “a novel system and method for combining germicidal protection and aromatic diffusion in enclosed habitable spaces.” ’ Products of this type are commonly known as “vaporizers” or “diffusers.” On inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found that certain claims of ESIP’s patent are invalid as obvious. The Federal Circuit affirmed, first rejecting ESIP’s claim that the Board should not have instituted inter partes review because appellee Puzhen failed to identify “all real parties in interest” as required by 35 U.S.C. 312. The Board’s decision to institute inter partes review is final and not appealable. The Board’s determination of obviousness in light of prior art was supported by substantial evidence. View "ESIP Series 2, LLC v. Puzhen Life USA, LLC" on Justia Law

In 2012, Lozano gave birth to a baby. While still hospitalized, Lozano received a tetanus-diphtheria-acellular-pertussis (Tdap) vaccination. Two weeks later, Lozano reported a low-grade fever, body aches, and breast tenderness. Lozano’s symptoms persisted through visits to her physician and the emergency room. She developed abdominal pain, difficulty urinating, weakness, loss of balance, vision changes, neck pain, headache, vomiting, and dizziness. A brain MRI suggested that Lozano possibly had multiple sclerosis (MS), acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), or vasculitis. Lozano’s symptoms improved with steroid treatment, following a working diagnosis of MS. After several months, a repeat MRI “showed dramatic improvement, suggesting that ADEM was a more likely etiology, which was confirmed through later serological findings.” Lozano’s doctors opine that ADEM is the likely explanation for her symptoms.Lozano sought compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, 42 U.S.C. 300aa. Lozano’s expert opined that Lozano’s ADEM was the result of her receipt of the Tdap vaccine. The special master granted Lozano’s petition, finding that her expert’s testimony and the supporting medical literature demonstrated that the Tdap vaccine can cause autoimmune diseases such as ADEM and that Lozano offered preponderant evidence of a proximate temporal relationship between the vaccine and her injury. The Claims Court and Federal Circuit upheld the award of a lump-sum payment of $1,199,216.86, finding that the decision was neither an abuse of discretion nor contrary to law and that the fact-findings were neither arbitrary nor capricious. View "Lozano v. Secretary of Health and Human Services" on Justia Law

In 1999, the Taylors purchased land near a New Mexico Air Force base to raise calves. The Air Force began flying training missions over the land, sometimes “no more than 20 feet . . . off the deck.” In 2008, the Taylors granted Wind Energy an exclusive five-year option for an easement on the Taylors’ property, for “wind resource evaluation, wind energy development, energy transmission and related wind energy development uses.” In 2012, Air Force employees suggested to Wind Energy that the FAA would not issue a “No Hazard” designation for the air space above the Taylors’ land, which would be “fatal to the construction of planned wind turbines.” Wind Energy exercised its contractual right to terminate the agreement.The Taylors sued, claiming that the Air Force’s informal advice to Wind Energy caused a regulatory taking of their property interest in their contract and that the flyovers effected a physical taking. The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. Wind Energy’s termination was not a breach of the agreement so the Taylors had no property right in the continuation of that agreement nor did they have any investment-backed expectations. Any advice given by Air Force employees did not amount to an FAA denial. The Taylors did not provide factual allegations of how the flights “directly, immediately, and substantially interfere” with their quiet enjoyment and use of the land View "Taylor v. United States" on Justia Law

Cochlear’s patent describes a hearing aid with several parts. A vibration-producing component is implanted and mechanically anchored into a patient’s skull on the patient’s deaf side. An external component, which includes a microphone, picks up sound on the patient’s deaf side, processes the sound, and generates vibrations in the implanted part, which are transmitted through th skull to the patient’s non-deaf ear, which then perceives sound originating from the deaf-ear side. The Patent and Trademark Office instituted two inter partes reviews, 35 U.S.C. 311–319, and concluded that claims 4–6 and 11–12 had been proven unpatentable; claims 7–10 were not unpatentable. Cochlear disclaimed claims 1–3 and 13.The Federal Circuit affirmed except with respect to claim 10, as to which it vacated. The Board correctly held that the preamble phrase “for rehabilitation of unilateral hearing loss” is not a limitation on the scope of the apparatus claims. The court upheld obviousness determinations concerning claims 4-6 and found claims 11-12 anticipated by prior art. On remand with respect to claim 10, the Board should consider whether the directivity-dependent-microphone alternative is outside the scope of 35 U.S.C. 112, because it recites a structure (the directivity dependent microphone) that sufficiently corresponds to the claimed directivity means. View "Cochlear Bone Anchored Solutions AB v. Oticon Medical AB" on Justia Law