As part of the Hatch-Waxman Act, given the lack of information on the allegedly infringing product, courts have found that patentees can satisfy the pleading requirements of Twombly/Iqbal without having access to the accused...more
December 1, 2020 marked the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abrogation of Form 18—the model complaint that provided the minimum requirements for stating a claim of direct infringement. Following the abrogation...more
The Situation: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 84, which permitted U.S. patent-infringement lawsuits to proceed on very general allegations, was withdrawn three years ago. Subsequent court decisions have considered how much...more
A recent opinion from the Northern District of Texas is a reminder to all patent practitioners to heed pleading standards when drafting a complaint for patent infringement. In Lexington Luminance LLC v. Service Lighting and...more
A Complaint Identifying Infringing Products and the Patents Allegedly Infringed, Accompanied by Statements that the Products Meet All Elements of at Least One Claim of the Asserted Patents, May be Sufficient to Meet the...more
Addressing the minimum pleading requirements of Twombly and Iqbal, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s finding that a plaintiff’s eight-page complaint failed to state a claim on which...more
On May 18, 2018, United States District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein granted in part and denied in part Defendant Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”)’s motion to dismiss Holotouch, Inc. (“Holotouch”)’s complaint. Microsoft...more
After having its complaint for patent infringement dismissed for failure to state a claim and being denied its request to file an amended complaint in the Middle District of Georgia, Disc Disease Solutions turned to the...more
Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. v. Renesas Electronics America, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2016-2121, -2208, -2235 (Fed. Cir. 2018)?- In an appeal from a jury trial, the Federal Circuit addressed numerous issues...more
Federal Circuit Summaries - Before Reyna, Wallach, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. Summary: A complaint that attaches the asserted patents, specifically...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) addressed the pleading standards for direct infringement, doctrine of equivalents infringement, indirect infringement and willful infringement in...more
Federal Circuit Summaries - Before Moore, Schall, and O’Malley. Appeal from the Northern District of Illinois. Summary: A plaintiff need not prove its case of patent infringement at the pleading stage. To the extent a...more
Intercontinental v. Kellogg involves a fight between two food industry powerhouses, Kraft and Kellogg, in which a majority of the panel affirms summary judgment of obviousness of a patent directed to a resealable cookie...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
The District of Massachusetts recently grappled with the proper analytical standard when faced with a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss in a patent infringement case. Judge Burroughs held that the familiar...more
Judge Allison Burroughs of the District of Massachusetts recently issued a decision that provides much-needed insight into pleading standards in patent cases. With the demise of Form 18 of the Federal Rules of Civil...more
In a recent opinion out of the District of Massachusetts, the court ordered that a patent infringement dispute between two Massachusetts-based competitors in the lighting systems industry would be allowed to proceed. This...more
Addressing the pleading standard under which a joint patent infringement claim must be reviewed, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a complaint of patent infringement, finding that the...more
Plaintiffs bringing patent infringement complaints under the Iqbal/Twombly pleading standard should take notice. On September 30, 2016, a panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a deficient...more
How explicitly must a complaint sounding in antitrust allege causation? At oral argument last week, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit evaluated the sufficiency of the plaintiffs’ allegations that certain Takeda...more
On September 12, 2016, District Judge John G. Koeltl (S.D.N.Y.) granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss for failure to state claim of patent infringement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) 12(b)(6). Claims...more
It has been a little more than half a year since the amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure abrogated Rule 84 and put an end to the Form 18 bare-bones style patent complaint. The question on the minds of many...more
On December 1, 2015, changes recommended by the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and adopted by the Supreme Court will take effect. Among these changes is elimination of the...more
Addressing pleading requirements for direct and indirect infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s determination that although pre-filing notice is not required to bring suit...more