“Sticks and stones may break my bones … but [sharp] words [from the Federal Circuit] will make me wish I never went to law school.” The judges of the Federal Circuit understandably become frustrated when attorneys...more
The Federal Circuit affirmed a district court award of over $360,000 in costs and attorneys’ fees against a non-practicing entity, citing the need “to deter future abusive litigation.” In October 2016, Blackbird sued...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - Blackbird Tech LLC v. Health in Motion LLC, Appeal No. 2018-2393 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 16, 2019) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a fee award against prevailing...more
BLACKBIRD TECH LLC v. HEALTH IN MOTION LLC - Before Wallach, Prost, and Hughes. Appeal from U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Summary: The Federal Circuit affirmed a finding that a frivolous...more
Reaffirming that the plaintiff in a patent case has the burden of establishing that venue is proper, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal. The Court ultimately denied the...more
WESTECH AEROSOL CORPORATION v. 3M COMPANY - Before Lourie, Mayer, and Reyna. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Summary: To establish proper venue, a plaintiff must...more
On April 25, 2019, in Int’l Designs Corp., LLC, et. al. v. Hair Art Int’l, Inc., Judge George H. Wu in the Central District of California denied Hair Art’s motion for attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Judge Wu concluded...more
No. Micro Processing Technology, Inc. sent a letter to Plasma-Therm alleging that Plasma-Therm was infringing MPT’s patent. Plasma-Therm filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that it did not infringe....more
Generally, courts will not scrutinize the business decisions of litigants. Concerns arise, however, when such decisions are improperly made for the purposes of abusing the judicial process. One business decision that has...more
A flurry of activity from various courts this past week on “exceptional cases” under Section 285 of the Patent Act provided notable guidance for practitioners and patent owners, with a particular emphasis on the motivation...more
Addressing whether deterrence can play a role in an attorneys’ fee award under § 285, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that once a case is deemed exceptional, § 285 only authorizes an award of reasonable...more
Amgen recently sued Apotex under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA) over Apotex’s proposed biosimilar of Amgen’s Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), a long-lasting version of Neupogen. This is the first...more
A U.S. patent is “presumed” valid. That means a patent owner does not need to prove the patent is valid in a suit for infringement. And, as the U.S. Supreme Court just explained in Commil United States, LLC v. Cisco Systems,...more
On May 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Commil USA LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 575 U. S. ____ ( 2015), rejecting the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals’ recognition of a defense to induced patent...more
The U.S. Supreme Court held yesterday in Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Sys., Inc. (No. 13-896) that a defendant’s belief regarding patent invalidity is not a defense to a claim of induced infringement. Justice Kennedy authored the...more
In an important decision in Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., the U. S. Supreme Court held yesterday that a good-faith belief in the invalidity of a patent cannot negate the intent required for induced infringement. The...more
In a 6-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a defendant’s good-faith belief in the invalidity of a patent is not a defense to a claim for inducing infringement of the patent. Under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b), “[w]hoever...more
On May 26, 2015, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (No. 13-896), rejecting the accused patent infringer’s argument that a good faith belief that the patent is invalid is a defense...more
On May 26th, in Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that an accused infringer cannot hide behind a reasonable belief that a patent is invalid in order to avoid being found as an infringer by...more
The Supreme Court handed down its decision in Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. today and in doing so reprised several themes that have emerged over the past decade of the Court's activist approach to patent law. The...more
The Supreme Court in the last several years has taken an activist approach to the area of patent law, granting certiorari in many more cases than in prior years and often reversing the Federal Circuit. If there was one theme...more
House Bill 194 was introduced on May 11, 2015, by primary sponsor Representative Kristina Roegner (R), Ohio House District 37. As introduced, the new bill will prohibit persons from engaging in the widespread sending of bad...more
SUPREME COURT CASES - U.S. Supreme Court Remands Case to Federal Circuit to Review Patent Under Teva - On April 20, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded a case back to the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal...more
Congress v SCtPatent litigation reform has been on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee agenda, with the recent reintroduction of legislation seeking to address patent litigation abuses and a hearing examining recent U.S....more
Federal Circuit Upholds Award of Sanctions for a “Frivolous” Patent Lawsuit - On June 5, 2014, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Southern District of New York’s decision to sanction Appellant and its attorneys for...more