Recently, District Court Judge Thomas S. Zilly in the Western District of Washington granted Ironburg Inventions Ltd.’s (“Ironburg”) motion for inter partes review (“IPR”) estoppelpursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), which...more
Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions - LKQ CORPORATION v. GM GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS LLC [OPINION] (2021-2348, 5/21/24) Moore, Lourie, Dyk, Prost, Reyna, Taranto, Chen, Hughes, Stoll, and Stark - Stoll,...more
On January 5, 2024, Judge McMahon (S.D.N.Y.) decided Plaintiff GeigTech East Bay LLC (“GeigTech”)’s and Defendant Lutron Electronics Co. (“Lutron”)’s motions in limine....more
Motions to amend (MTA) are becoming a more frequently used tool for patent owners litigating before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). When a patent is being challenged in an inter partes review (IPR) or post-grant...more
A frequent issue seen within patent litigation is whether serving a complaint satisfies the knowledge requirement for post-complaint indirect infringement. This issue affects the amount of, if any, damages a patent owner can...more
Sequoia Technology, LLC v. Dell, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2021-2263, -2264, -2265, -2266 (Fed. Cir. April 12, 2023) In an appeal from a stipulated judgment of noninfringement and invalidity following an adverse claim construction...more
On February 4, 2022, the Federal Circuit clarified that IPR estoppel extends to all claims and invalidity grounds that the petitioner could have reasonably asserted in its IPR petition. ...more
Although it may seem counterintuitive, the PTAB has jurisdiction over expired patents, and patent owners may need to defend their expired patents in inter partes review. The PTAB recently reiterated this in Apple, Inc. v....more
The Supreme Court recently denied Chrimar Systems, Inc. (Chrimar)’s petition for certiorari seeking to overturn the Federal Circuit’s “Fresenius/Simmons preclusion principle,” under which Chrimar’s district court victory...more
Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas issued a decision addressing motions to stay a patent infringement case under the “customer-suit exception” to the general first-to-file rule. Judge Gilstrap...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding regarding motivation to combine based only on conclusory expert testimony was not supported by substantial...more
PLAINTIFF’S DISCLAIMER OF CLAIMS FOUND INVALID BY THE PTAB MOOTED ANY CONTROVERSY BEFORE THE APPELLATE COURT ASSOCIATED WITH THAT PATENT, AND A SECOND PATENT-IN-SUIT WAS NOT INVALID BECAUSE THE DISTRICT COURT DID NOT ERR IN...more
This post is a part of a monthly series summarizing notable activity in patent litigation in the District of Massachusetts, including short summaries of substantive orders....more
Despite the prohibition on patenting “abstract ideas” and the tendency of computer software claims to fall into that category, claims directed at improving faulty software systems may still be patentable if they encompass an...more
A weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board....more
On June 24, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari in Dex Media Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP. Next term, the Court will determine whether 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) permits appeal of the U.S....more
On March 25, 2018, the District Court in Nichia Corporation v. VIZIO, Inc., Case No. 8-16-cv-00545 (CACD 2019-03-25, Order), granted defendant’s motion to preclude plaintiff’s damages expert from testifying that plaintiff...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its 12th annual list of top patent stories. For 2018, we identified fifteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we believe...more
Assignor estoppel is an equitable doctrine that prevents a party who assigns a patent to another from later challenging the validity of the assigned patent. As reported in a prior post, the Federal Circuit recently stated...more
Judge Pauline Newman has been concerned regarding constitutional issues raised by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board's implementation of inter partes review as provided by the Leahy-Smith...more
In a May 10, 2018 ruling, discussed earlier on this blog, Magistrate Judge Payne affirmed the jury’s willfulness finding largely on the ground that TCL did not proffer any evidence that it held a subjective, good faith belief...more
In a highly anticipated decision on the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s motion to terminate inter partes review proceedings, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected tribal sovereign immunity to IPRs. The PTAB’s decision also...more
In district courts’ claim construction analyses, intrinsic evidence is of paramount importance. Although extrinsic evidence “may be useful to the court,” it is considered “less significant” than the claim language,...more
A few months ago, the Irish drug company Allergan moved to shield its key patents on its dry-eye drug Restasis from challenge at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent Office by assigning these patents to...more
On October 27, 2016, District Judge J. Paul Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) granted defendant Comcast Corp.'s ("Comcast") motion to stay the case pending resolution of inter partes review ("IPR") proceedings instituted by the Patent Trial...more