Meritas Capability Webinar - Controlling Where to Fight and Who Pays for it?
On August 17, 2022, Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly of the District of Delaware issued an order in which he questioned the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s disclosure of financially interested parties in Longbeam Technologies LLC....more
In Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Almirall, LLC, the Federal Circuit recently found 35 U.S.C. § 285 did not authorize the Court awarding attorney’s fees for conduct occurring at the PTAB. No. 2020-1106, 2020 WL 2961939, at *2...more
In Peters v. NantKwest, Inc., the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, held that the “all expenses of the proceedings” provision of a 35 U.S.C. § 145 civil appeal does not include the...more
Considering for the first time whether fee shifting of § 285 applies to exceptional conduct arising solely from an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that § 285 does not...more
HITKANSUT LLC V. UNITED STATES - Before Prost, Clevenger, and Moore. Appeal from the Court of Federal Claims. Summary: Fee-shifting under 28 U.S.C. § 1498(a), turns on whether “the position of the United States was...more
On December 11, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) controversial policy of shifting attorneys’ fees in Peter v. NantKwest, Case No. 18-801. The Court ruled that the USPTO...more
Laura Peter, Deputy Director, Patent and Trademark Office v. NantKwest, Inc., No. 18-801 (December 11, 2019) - Yesterday, the Supreme Court overruled a recent interpretation of 35 USC §145 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark...more
Last Friday, the Federal Circuit issued its en banc opinion in NantKwest, Inc. v. Iancu, No. 16-1794 (Fed. Cir. July 27, 2018). The Court held, by a 7-4 vote (Judge Chen, the former PTO Solicitor, was recused), that if the...more
Federal Circuit Summaries - Before Lourie, O’Malley, and Wallach. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Summary: When a case is dismissed with prejudice for lack of standing,...more
Design Patents—Supreme Court Decides Samsung v. Apple - Why it matters: On December 6, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Samsung v. Apple, holding that, for purposes of a "total profits" damages award for infringement of a...more
Supreme Court Abolished Federal Circuit's Test for Willfulness - On June 13, 2016, in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., 579 U.S. ___ (2016), the Supreme Court unanimously abrogated the Federal Circuit’s...more
Obvious Combinations Do Not Need to Be Physically Combinable - In Allied Erecting and Dismantling Co., Inc. v. Genesis Attachments, LLC, Appeal No. 2015-1533, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s invalidity finding...more
In most litigation, each party pays its own attorney fees and costs, regardless of the outcome of the case. The Patent Act of 1952, however, allowed for an award of fees to the prevailing party in patent litigation in...more
Intellectual property litigation is expensive for both the plaintiff and defendant. However, because defendants are required to defend themselves in a lawsuit—in comparison to a plaintiff who has the choice to file and...more
Addressing the degree to which litigation conduct can preclude the recovery of fees under 35 U.S. C. § 285, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the denial of a fee award, finding that sloppy litigation...more
Last week, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, released a 200-page Report on H.R. 9, "The innovation Act," introduced by Chairman Goodlatte with several co-sponsors earlier this year. The bill sets...more
With yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee vote, there are now competing, and in some respects significantly different, patent reform proposals under serious consideration in the House and the Senate. Among the most important...more
The field of patent law is in a state of flux. Just four years after the America Invents Act (“AIA”) went into effect, Congress is taking up the issue once again, this time seeking to pass legislation to curb abusive patent...more
The Medical Device Manufacturers Association (“MDMA”) has been vocal in lobbying Capitol Hill for what they consider “necessary changes” to patent law for continuing medical device innovation. Part of that lobbying has...more
Tuesday, April 14, the House Judiciary Committee convened to discuss H.R. 9, the “Innovation Act,” which was introduced in February 2015 by the Committee’s Chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). The hearing came a day after the...more
On February 5, 2015, Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) introduced H.R. 9, entitled the “Innovation Act.” Among other things, the bill would direct courts to award attorneys’ fees and litigation-related expenses to prevailing...more
After reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its eighth annual list of top patent stories. For 2014, we identified eighteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year that we...more
There is a continued need for patent reform to address the asymmetrical costs that patent litigation imposes on defendants. Given the substantial costs imposed on U.S. technology companies by the number of suits brought by...more
Anyone that has been monitoring the outcome of district court cases recently will be aware of the perils of not including sufficient information, or not timely supplementing, preliminary infringement or invalidity contentions...more
Fee-shifting in patent infringement suits has been authorized by statute since 1952, for application in “exceptional cases.” For the past nine years, that statute has not often been applied as a result of the Federal...more