In This Issue:

• Judgment of Infringement Entered as Sanction

• Patent Exhaustion Does Not Apply to Harvested Seeds

• Judges Disagree on § 101 Standards

• Litigation Is Not a Domestic Industry

- Excerpt from Judgment of Infringement Entered as Sanction:

In Alexsam, Inc. v. IDT Corp., Appeal No. 12-1063, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment of no invalidity and some of its findings of infringement.

Alexsam accused four different IDT systems (used for selling phone and gift cards) of infringing a patent related to activating “multifunction card[s].”

During trial, the district court found that IDT failed to fully and completely respond to interrogatories with regards to the fourth system, and therefore the court entered judgment of infringement of the fourth system as a sanction. The jury then found infringement by the first, second and third systems, as well as no invalidity. Following trial, the court granted a motion for noninfringement of the third system based on a licensing agreement.

The Federal Circuit reversed the finding of infringement for the first and second systems. The patent recites a system including “an unmodified existing standard retail point of sale device.” At trial, Alexsam’s experts testified that the systems could use an unmodified terminal, but did not testify that the systems actually used an unmodified terminal.