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

The Firebug patents are generally directed to footwear illumination systems. According to the patents, while light-up shoes are not new to the industry, there are many possible structural designs. In some designs, the light sources are external to the footwear; in others, the lights are integrated into the shoes. The Firebug patents purport to disclose an improved structure for internally illuminated footwear. The patents describe footwear comprising a sole and an upper portion having three layers—a liner (the innermost layer), an interfacing layer, and a light-diffusing layer. The light sources are connected to the interfacing layer between the interfacing layer and the light-diffusing layer. The interfacing layer is reflective and maximizes the amount of light that exits through the light-diffusing layer. Stride Rite, Firebug’s competitor, filed an infringement suit. Stride Rite, in response, filed petitions for inter partes review of certain claims. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found the claims unpatentable as obvious over prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed. While the preamble of claim 1 of one patent limits the challenged claims to require textile footwear, the Board’s ultimate conclusion of obviousness is correct under the proper claim construction and any error was therefore harmless. The obviousness determination was supported by substantial evidence. View "Shoes by Firebus LLC v. Stride Rite Children's Group, LLC" on Justia Law

Nike’s patents share a specification and are directed to methods of manufacturing an article of footwear with a textile upper. Adidas petitioned for inter partes review of certain claims. The Patent Board held that Adidas had not demonstrated that the challenged claims are unpatentable as obvious. The Federal Circuit affirmed, first holding that Adidas had standing. The companies are in direct competition. Nike refused to grant Adidas a covenant not to sue, confirming that Adidas’ risk of infringement is concrete and substantial. Substantial evidence supports a finding that the claims are not obvious. The claims recite a method of “mechanically-manipulating a yarn with a circular knitting machine . . . to form a cylindrical textile structure.” The process involves removing a textile element from the textile structure and incorporating it into an upper of the article of footwear. Adidas had not demonstrated that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine prior references and failed to identify which reference or combination of references it was relying on to disclose each limitation of the challenged claims. View "Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2012, the Department of Commerce issued an antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China. In 2015, Commerce initiated the first administrative review of this antidumping duty order. Domestic and foreign producers each challenged aspects of Commerce’s 2016 Final Results under 19 U.S.C 1516a(a)(2). After remands, the Trade Court sustained Commerce’s determinations of dumping margins of 6.55% for Trina, 0% for Yingli, and 8.52% for BYD. The Federal Circuit vacated with respect to Commerce’s selection of Thailand as “the primary surrogate country” under 19 C.F.R. 351.408, as necessary to determine “normal price” for a non-market economy country, and calculation of a surrogate value for Trina’s nitrogen input using Thai import data published by the Global Trade Atlas. The court affirmed with respect to Commerce’s decision to use zero-quantity data; use of Thai HTS subheadings 3920.62 and 3920.10 to value Trina’s and Yingli’s backsheets; and remand to Commerce to further justify or reconsider its use of Thai GTA data to value Yingli’s tempered glass input. View "SolarWorld Americas, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Water levels in Eagle Lake, near Vicksburg, are controlled by the Muddy Bayou Control Structure, part of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Mississippi River flood control program. Eagle Lake's predictable water levels allowed the plaintiffs to build piers, boathouses, and docks. In 2010, the Corps determined that “sand boils” threatened the stability of the nearby Mississippi River Mainline Levee, a component of the same flood-control program. Unusually wet weather in 2011 exacerbated the problem. The Corps declared an emergency, finding that the rise in nearby water levels threatened the structural integrity of the levee and “that the likelihood of breach was over 95%.” The Corps decided to flood Eagle Lake to reduce pressures along the levee. Because of that action, the levee did not breach. A breach would have resulted in widespread flooding affecting “about a million acres and possibly between four thousand to six thousand homes and businesses.” The damage to the plaintiffs’ properties would have exceeded the damage caused by raising the lake level. The plaintiffs sued, seeking compensation. The Federal Circuit reversed the Claims Court’s finding that the government was liable and award of $168,000 in compensatory damages. The relative benefits doctrine bars liability. The plaintiffs were better off as a result of the Corps’ actions. If the government had not raised the water level, the levee would almost certainly have breached, and the plaintiffs would have suffered more damage. View "Alford v. United States" on Justia Law

Personal Web’s patents share a largely common specification and claim priority to an abandoned patent application, which was filed in 1995. According to the specification, there was a problem with the way computer networks identified data in their systems. There was “no direct relationship between the data names” and the contents of the data item. Computer networks could become clogged with duplicate data, and the efficiency and integrity of data processing systems could be impaired. The inventors purported to solve this problem by devising “True Names” for data items. The system created a “substantially unique” identifier for each data item that depended only on the content of the data itself and did not depend on purportedly less reliable means of identifying data items, such as user-provided file names. PersonalWeb sued Amazon for patent infringement. After the district court issued its claim construction order, PersonalWeb stipulated to the dismissal of all its claims against Amazon with prejudice; the court subsequently entered judgment against PersonalWeb.In 2018, PersonalWeb filed dozens of new lawsuits against website operators, many of which were Amazon’s customers. Amazon intervened. The Federal Circuit affirmed a declaratory judgment that PersonalWeb’s lawsuits against Amazon’s customers were barred as a result of the prior lawsuit brought by PersonalWeb against Amazon. View "In Re PersonalWeb Technologies LLC" on Justia Law

The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awarded contracts for the opportunity to sell information technology services to various federal government agencies. Inserso did not receive an award; its total evaluated price was the 23rd lowest in a competition for 20 slots. DISA attached a debriefing document to its notice, including the total evaluated price for the awardees and some previously undisclosed information on how DISA evaluated the cost element of the proposals. Inserso sent follow-up communications, noting that several awardees in the small-business competition had also competed in the full-and-open competition as part of joint ventures or partnerships. Inserso asked whether those entities had received similarly detailed debriefings and expressed concern that, if so, the earlier debriefing would have provided unequal information giving a competitive advantage to some bidders. DISA stated that all unsuccessful bidders in both competitions were given similarly detailed information. The Federal Circuit ruled in favor of the government. Because Inserso did not object to the solicitation before the awards, when it was unreasonable to disregard the high likelihood of the disclosure at issue, Inserso forfeited its ability to challenge the solicitation. The court did not reach the issue of whether DISA’s disclosure prejudiced Inserso. View "Inserso Corp v. United States" on Justia Law

SolarWorld filed an antidumping duty petition concerning certain photovoltaic products imported from China. After two remands, the Trade Court affirmed rulings by the Department of Commerce selecting Harmonized Tariff Schedule Heading 7604 for valuation of the aluminum frame inputs to the photovoltaic modules and offsetting the antidumping duty cash deposit rate to account for export subsidies. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Commerce’s use of subheading 7604.29.65 to value the aluminum frames is supported by substantial evidence. Commerce’s offset practice is reasonable under the statutory plan because it fosters consistency in investigations and administrative reviews. The practice balances the dumping margin against deterrence, lowers the combined antidumping/countervailing cash deposit rate, and avoids the inequity of double application of duty. View "Jinko Solar Co., Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

Oliva worked for the VA, 2000-2016. In 2015, Oliva challenged the VA’s issuance of a letter of reprimand for Oliva accusing a supervisor of improperly pre-selecting an applicant for a position; Oliva claimed that his email constituted protected whistleblowing. Under a Settlement Agreement, the VA agreed to provide a written reference and the assurance of a positive verbal reference, if requested; Oliva’s Waco supervisor would not mention the retracted reprimand. Oliva was terminated from his employment in April 2016, for performance reasons. Oliva claims that the VA twice breached the Settlement: in March 2015, when Oliva applied for a position in the VA’s El Paso medical center the reprimand letter was disclosed and in February 2016, when Oliva applied for a position in the VA’s Greenville healthcare center a Waco employee disclosed that Oliva was on a Temporary Duty Assignment.The Claims Court held that Oliva’s complaint plausibly alleged breaches of the Agreement that resulted in the loss of future employment opportunities. Oliva sought $289,564 in lost salary and lost relocation pay of either $86,304 or $87,312. The Claims Court then held that Oliva had not stated plausible claims to recover lost salary or relocation pay. The Federal Circuit reversed. Oliva plausibly claimed that the alleged breaches were the cause of his lost salary. Oliva’s termination from his Waco job does not undercut that plausibility. View "Oliva v. United States" on Justia Law

Ginnie Mae (GM), established by 12 U.S.C. 1717(a)(2)(A) to provide stability in the secondary residential mortgage market and promote access to mortgage credit, guarantees mortgage-backed securities (MBS). FMC, a private corporation, was an originator and servicer of government-guaranteed home mortgages and an issuer of MBS in GM’s program. GM learned of FMC actions that constituted the immediate default of the Guaranty Agreements. FMC undertook an investigation and provided the results to GM, while also complying with SEC requests. GM later terminated FMC from its program. The SEC initiated a civil enforcement action, which terminated in a consent agreement, without FMC admitting or denying the allegations but paying disgorgement and penalties. The Consent Agreement provided that it did not affect FMC’s right to take positions in proceedings in which the SEC is not a party but FMC agreed to not take any action or permit any public statement denying any allegation in the SEC complaint FMC later sued, alleging that GM had breached Guaranty Agreements when it terminated FMC from its program and denied violating those Agreements.The Federal Circuit affirmed the Claims Court’s dismissal. FMC’s breach of contract claims are precluded under the doctrine of res judicata. FMC’s action is essentially a collateral attack on the judgment entered in the SEC action. The SEC and GM are in privity for the purposes of precluding FMC’s claims and “successful prosecution of the second action would nullify the initial judgment or would impair rights established in the initial action.” View "First Mortgage Corp. v. United States" on Justia Law

Carr served Air Force active duty, 1976-1980, earning 45 months of education benefits under Chapter 34 (Vietnam-era GI Bill), Carr used 41 months and 11 days of those benefits for his own education before the entire Chapter 34 program expired. After September 11, 2001, Carr returned to active duty and would have been eligible for 36 additional months of benefits under Chapter 33 (Post-9/11 GI Bill), but 38 U.S.C. 3695 limited him to a cumulative total of 48 months. Carr transferred those benefits to his daughter, 38 U.S.C. 3319, who used paid for two semesters. Due to a VA error, she initially did not receive payments to cover the final days of the Fall 2010 semester and was informed, incorrectly, that she had exhausted her benefits. Later, it was discovered that she had 19 days of benefits remaining; one day was applied to the Fall 2013 semester. Chapter 33 permits extensions of education benefits “in a roundabout way” to the end of the semester, 38 C.F.R. 21.9635(o)(1). The regional office, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, and the Veterans Court rejected Carr's Chapter 33 claim.The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded for consideration of the unaddressed regulatory challenge. . The Veterans Court resolved the appeal through statutory interpretation and did not address the transferred benefits regulation; 38 U.S.C. 3695(a)’s aggregate multi-program benefits cap does not preclude end-of-term extensions of benefits authorized under individual benefits programs. View "Carr v. Wilkie" on Justia Law