A recent district court decision in Sonos v. Google has set forth a novel application of the prosecution laches doctrine to a patent with a post-1995 priority date. Sonos Inc. v. Google LLC, 20-06754 WHA, 2023 WL 6542320...more
We are excited to share Sheppard Mullin’s inaugural quarterly report on key Federal Circuit decisions. The Spring 2023 Quarterly Report provides summaries of most key patent law-related decisions from January 1, 2023 to March...more
Bulk-Filed Patent Applications Claiming Distant Priority Trigger Prosecution Laches - In Hyatt v. Hirshfeld, Appeal No. 18-2390, the Federal Circuit held that the PTO met its burden to prove prosecution laches for bulk-filed...more
On June 1, in Hyatt vs Hirshfeld, the Federal Circuit upheld the USPTO’s decision to reject a patent application for prosecution laches, based on delay by the applicant. The decision details behaviors that, while likely...more
The Federal Circuit recently overturned a decision estopping the plaintiff from pursuing its infringement claims in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and clarified the effect of...more
On March 27, 2018, District Judge Matsumoto (E.D.N.Y.) issued an 83-page decision on the parties' summary judgment briefing, which covered ten issues across three patents relating to multilayer ceramic capacitors. ...more
This year was a significant year for intellectual property cases at the Supreme Court level. In fact, the Supreme Court granted certiorari for seven patent cases, and decided five of these cases before the end of the year....more
Arbitration - Waymo v. Uber Technologies, 870 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2017) - Waymo sued Uber and others for trade secret misappropriation and patent infringement. Uber contends that Waymo should be compelled to...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 11th annual list of top patent stories. For 2017, we identified nineteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe...more
Despite being short one justice for much of the year, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down multiple significant decisions this past term that can unsettle long-standing legal understandings in multiple technology fields. These...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a 7-1 ruling in SCA Hygiene1 that eliminated the common-law defense of laches in patent infringement cases. The Supreme Court reasoned that laches is a “gap-filling doctrine” that does...more
This paper is based on reports on precedential patent cases decided by the Federal Circuit distributed by Peter Heuser on a weekly basis. ...more
Update to TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, Case No. 16-341 (May 22, 2017) - In an 8-0 opinion written by Justice Thomas (Justice Gorsuch did not participate), the Supreme Court rules that a defendant...more
On March 21, 2017 the Supreme Court issued a monumental holding removing the availability of laches as a defense in a claim for damages under patent infringement. The case changes decades of legal precedent, and adopts...more
Supreme Court Restricts the Extraterritorial Reach of U.S. Patent Law for Exported Goods - On February 22, 2017, the Supreme Court in a landmark decision held that the supply of a single component of a multicomponent...more
Apparently, quite a bit according to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has dipped its toe into the waters of intellectual property law again and has decided to overturn 150 years or more of common law precedent in its...more
In SCA v. First Quality Baby Products, the Supreme Court holds that laches should not be available as a defense in patent cases, refusing to concur with the Circuit’s en banc holding that the Patent Act’s 6-year limitation on...more
In SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, the Supreme Court last week overruled the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision that laches (unreasonable delay in bringing a claim) can bar recovery of...more
In what some perceive as a major shift from decades of precedent, the United States Supreme Court held last week that laches – unreasonable delay – is no longer a valid defense against a claim for patent infringement so long...more
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two opinions on intellectual property issues. On March 21, 2017, the Court decided in a 7-1 opinion that laches is no longer a valid defense to a claim of patent infringement occurring...more
Three years ago, in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., the Supreme Court held that the equitable defense of laches is not available against copyright claims for damages brought within the Copyright Act’s three-year...more
In a 7-1 decision on March 21, 2017, in the case of SCA Hygiene Products AB v. First Quality Baby Products LLC, the United States Supreme Court reversed an en banc decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and...more
In SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, the Supreme Court made plain that laches is merely an equitable defense in patent cases, and will not bar a damage claim if brought within the six year...more
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that laches is not a defense in the majority of patent cases. Justice Alito, writing for the 7-1 majority, found the application of laches to patent disputes incompatible with the...more