Before NEWMAN, DYK, and STOLL. Appeal from the Northern District of California.
Summary: A consumer of a patented product has no standing under the Declaratory Judgment Act to challenge the validity of patents.
On May 2, 2018, high-end fashion designer and retailer Burberry Limited filed a complaint in the Southern District of New York against big box retailer Target Corporation alleging trademark infringement and trademark counterfeiting (among other claims) for Target’s alleged “repeated, willful and egregious misappropriation of Burberry’s famous and iconic luxury check trademarks.
A new infertility technique, mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), has been used to create so called “three-parent” babies. MRT is used in cases when mothers carry genes for mitochondrial diseases. Similar to in vitro fertilization (IVF), MRT involves removing an egg from a woman (mother), removing sperm from a man (father), fertilizing the egg with the sperm, allowing the fertilized egg to form a blastocyst, and then implanting the blastocyst into the mother’s womb.
In April 2018, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas awarded VirnetX Inc. (“VirnetX”) a total of more than $500,000,000 in its patent infringement suit against Apple Inc. (“Apple”). The four patents-in-suit were directed to secure communication links such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and Domain Name Services (DNS). This decision is the result of eight years of litigation between VirnetX and Apple, which included multiple trials. In the original case, Apple I, a jury found that the Virtual Private Network On Demand (“VOD”), which allows an Apple user to automatically connect to a VPN, and FaceTime, as used in various Apple products, infringed VirnetX’s patents.
The USPTO published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on May 9, 2018 seeking to change the claim construction standard for PTAB trials from the current broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) to the claim construction standard applied in federal courts and ITC proceedings that follow Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). The proposed rule also requires the PTAB to consider prior claim construction determinations that are timely made of record from a civil action or ITC proceeding.
Before PROST, WALLACH, and TARANTO. On Petition for Writ of Mandamus to the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Summary: The patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), does not apply to foreign corporations, which may be sued in any district where they are subject to personal jurisdiction.
The United States Department of Justice announced in a press release that Alere Inc. and its subsidiary, Alere San Diego, reached a settlement agreement with the United States government for $33.2 million over allegations that Alere had violated the False Claims Act. According to Healthcare Finance, the settlement did not include any admission of actual liability on Alere’s part.
Before Wallach, Chen, and Hughes. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: A party may not be time-barred from instituting an IPR despite having a business relationship with a defendant in an earlier filed infringement suit, where the party was not in privity with that defendant.
Before Moore, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota.
Summary: A district court must articulate a reasonable basis for denying attorneys’ fees under § 285 if it found inequitable conduct.
Before Newman, Mayer, and Lourie. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: An application is unpatentable under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(f) when the application does not name the correct inventors.
