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Claims to Paper Shredder with Two Sensors Are Held to be Obvious
ACCO Brands Corporation v. Fellowes, Inc.
In an inter partes reexamination involving a patent on paper shredders, the examiner found the claimed shredder to have been obvious. The shredder included two sensors, a sensor to sense that paper has been inserted and a sensor to sense the thickness of the inserted paper. Only if paper of an adequate thickness has been inserted will the shredder turn on and shred. Read more>>
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Court Affirmed PTAB’s Finding that IPR Petitioner Failed to Demonstrate Obviousness
Trivascular, Inc. v. Samuels
In an IPR proceeding, the PTAB made a final finding that the petitioner Trivascular had failed to meet its burden of proving the claims at issue (directed to inflatable stents) were invalid as being obvious. Trivascular appealed on two grounds: (1) that the PTAB had erred in construing the term “circumferential ridges” to exclude discontinuous points; and (2) that the PTAB had erred in its final decision in finding the claims not invalid, especially in light of its institution of the IPR on the ground of obviousness. Read more>>
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Court Affirmed that Patentee Bears the Burden of Proving that Substitute Claims in an IPR Proceeding Are Patentable Over the Asserted Prior Art and the Prior Art Known to It
Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG
In this IPR proceeding brought by Adidas, Nike filed a motion to amend by cancelling claims 1-46 and proposing substitute claims 47-50. The PTAB granted Nike’s motion to cancel, but denied its motion to add the substitute claims. Read more>>
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Court Affirms PTAB Rulings on IPR Including Decision Precluding Replacing Existing Claims with New Claims
Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corporation
In this IPR proceeding brought by Synopsys challenging claims of Mentor’s patent, the PTAB held that the IPR itself was not time-barred due to Synopsys acquiring a company whom Mentor had sued more than a year before the filing of the IPR, held that Mentor would not be permitted to replace claims with new claims, because Mentor had not proven that these new claims would be valid over the asserted prior art or valid in general, and held that two of the claims were not anticipated by the asserted prior art. Read more>>
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District Court Correctly Dismissed IPR Appeal for Lack of Jurisdiction, As IPR Appeals Are to be Heard by the Federal Circuit Only
Synopsys, Inc. v. Lee
Synopsis challenged the PTO’s regulation that allows the PTAB to institute IPRs on all or some of the challenged claims and the PTO’s practice of issuing final decisions on fewer than all of the claims raised in a petition. The district court dismissed on the grounds that all appeals of IPRs should be heard by the Federal Circuit. Read more>>
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District Court Did Not Err By Adopting a Dictionary Definition for the Construction of “Identifying” and Did Not Err By Limiting the Number of Patents and Claims at Trial
Nuance Communications, Inc. v. Abbyy USA Software House, Inc.
Nuance, the patent owner, appeals two issues. First, Nuance contends that the district court erred in construing the claim term “identifying” to have its plain and ordinary meaning. At the Markman hearing, Nuance argued that the term should have its plain and ordinary meaning, arguing that nothing in the specification warranted a departure from the plain and ordinary meaning. Read more>>
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District Court Erred In Construing the Terms “Portable” and “Mobile” to Have Their “Plain and Ordinary Meaning”
Eon Corporation IP Holdings LLC v. Silver Spring Networks, Inc.
The claims at issue relate to a two-way interactive communication network system for enabling communications between local subscribers and a base station. The claims require a subscriber unit and require that it be “portable” or “mobile.” Read more>>
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District Court’s Claim Construction of “User Interface” Is Affirmed, But Its Construction of “Commands” Is Reversed
Convolve, Inc. v. Compaq Computer Corp
This case involved claim construction issues with respect to the grant of summary judgment on non-infringement to Seagate and Compaq on different grounds. First, the district court granted summary judgment of non-infringement to Seagate on the ground that its accused device did not meet the “user interface” limitation of the asserted claims because the interactions are between devices, not a person interacting with the device. Read more>>
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Federal Circuit Affirms 3M’s Inequitable Conduct and Antitrust Activities and Affirms the Award of $23 Million in Attorney Fees to Transweb
Transweb, LLC v. 3M Innovative Properties Company
This case presents three issues: (1) whether there was corroborating evidence of a prior public use by the accused infringer Transweb; (2) whether 3M committed inequitable conduct in obtaining the patent-in-suit; and (3) whether Transweb’s attorneys fees are a proper measure of damages on a Walker Process antitrust claim. Read more>>
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Federal Circuit Holds Apple’s Patents to Be Obvious or Not Infringed, Contrary to the Jury’s Verdicts
Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
This appeal involved five patents asserted by Apple and two patents asserted by Samsung. On Apple’s ’647 patent, which involved a system for recognizing structures in text (e.g., a phone number) and linking actions to the recognized text (calling the phone number). The claims at issue included the term “analyzer server.” Read more>>
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Federal Circuit Reiterated Rule that Claim Terms Can Be Redefined By Implication Even Where There is No Explicit Redefinition or Disavowal
The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York v. Symantec Corporation
Based on the district court’s constructions for three claims terms, the parties stipulated to non-infringement. On appeal, the district court affirmed the constructions for two of the terms, but reversed on the third term, remanding to the district court for further proceedings regarding those claims. Read more>>
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In an IPR, if the Patentee Establishes that its Commercial Embodiment Practices the Claimed Invention, the Patentee is Entitled to a Rebuttable Presumption that the Commercial Success of the Products is Due to the Invention
PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC
The Federal Circuit held that the PTAB had correctly given the claim terms “continuity member” and “shaped to fit” their broadest reasonable interpretation, but gave the incorrect construction to the term “maintain electrical continuity.” Read more>>
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Lawsuit to Correct Inventorship Dismissed Due to Laches Where There Was a Delay of 10 Years to Bring Suit
Lismont v. Alexander Binzel Corporation
The court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment that Mr. Lismont’s request to correct the inventorship on Binzel’s patent was precluded under the doctrine of laches. There is a rebuttable presumption that laches applies where the delay is greater than 6 years. Here, the patent is suit issued in 2002, and Mr. Lismont waited for more than 10 years to request a correction of inventorship. Read more>>
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PTAB Erred In Construing Claim Term By Merely Adopting the Broadest Dictionary Definition Without Considering the Specification
PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC
The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded the decision of the PTAB finding the asserted claims to be obvious due to the PTAB’s erroneous construction for the term “reside around.” The claims at issue relate to coaxial cables and the term “reside around” referred to the relation of a “nut contact portion” to the connector body. Read more>>
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Questions of Fact Precluded Findings on Whether a Consultant Had Assigned His Rights To His Work On Patented Invention For the Purpose of Correcting Inventorship
TriReme Medical, LLC v. Angioscore, Inc
TriReme received an exclusive license from Dr. Lotan to three patents owned by Angioscore for which Dr. Lotan claims to have been a joint inventor. Angioscore contends that Dr. Lotan, who was a consultant to Angioscore when the inventions were conceived, assigned all his rights in any inventions to Angioscore in his consulting agreement. Read more>>
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Reasonable Restrictions on the Re-sale of Patented Articles Placed by the Patentee Are Enforceable and Foreign Sales Do Not Exhaust a Patent Owners Right to Enforce Its Patent In the U.S. Against Products Purchased Overseas
Lexmark International, Inc. v. Impression Products, Inc
This case involved printer cartridges sold in the U.S. by Lexmark with the explicit restriction that they were for single use only and could only be returned to Lexmark and printer cartridges sold in a foreign country without restrictions. Impression obtained both types of cartridges, refilled them with ink, and re-sold them in the United States. Read more>>
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Reformulated OxyContin Patents Are Invalid Over the Prior Art
Purdue Pharma L.P. v. Epic Pharma, LLC
In an ANDA case, the district court held that four patents directed to the reformulated version of the pain reliever OxyContin were invalid as being anticipated by or obvious over the prior art. With respect to the “low-ABUK oxycodone product,” the court held that Eibel Process v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 68 (1923), was inapplicable. Read more>>
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To Recover Damages Under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d) for Infringing a Published Patent Application, The Patentee Need Only Show Actual Knowledge of the Publication by the Accused Infringer
Rosebud LMS Inc. v. Adobe Systems Incorporated
Rosebud sued Adobe for infringing Rosebud’s ’280 patent. Adobe moved for summary judgment on the grounds that it ceased making and selling the accused product before the ’280 patent issued and that it could not be liable for damages under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d) for making the invention claimed in a published application, but it had no actual knowledge of the ’280 patent’s published application. Read more>>
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