U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), the primary federal agency responsible for securing America’s borders, is also charged with the protection of intellectual property rights and guarding against the infringement of U.S. copyrights and trademarks.
The University of Florida obtained patents covering new varieties of blueberry plants that can be grown in warmer climates. The University of Florida licensed these plants to companies, including Hartmann’s Plant Company in 2000. In 2004, Hartmann notified the University of Florida that it was terminating the licenses.
On July 25, 2017, a federal court in Wisconsin ordered Apple to pay a whopping $506 million for infringement of a patent on computer processor chip technology held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin.
This case arose out of an ANDA litigation between Millennium and a number of generic-drug companies who sought FDA approval of the generic counterparts of Velcade®, an oncology drug prescribed for multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. Millennium had sued the generic-drug companies over U.S. Patent 6,713,446 which claims the mannitol ester of bortezomib generated by lyophilizing bortezomib with mannitol. According to the district court, Millennium had conceded that the claimed mannitol ester was a natural result of lyophilizing bortezomib in the presence of mannitol.
On August 2, 2017, the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granting summary judgment in favor of Applera Corp. and Tropix, Inc. (“Applera”). This decision is the latest in a more than decade-long dispute between the parties.
In a final judgment dated July 19, 2017, a Florida federal court awarded treble damages to Omega Patents, a non-practicing patent licensing entity, for the infringement of five patents directed to vehicle control systems and trackers. The court also awarded over $1 million in costs and attorneys’ fees, as well as interest and supplemental damages for later sales, for a total judgement of over $15 million.
On July 19, 2017, a federal court in Michigan awarded Stryker Sales Corporation (“Stryker”) a total of more than $254,000,000 in its patent infringement suit against Zimmer Inc. and Zimmer Surgical Inc. (“Zimmer”). This award included three times Stryker’s actual damages, plus over $9.5 million in attorneys’ fees and associated interest, nearly $25 million in pre-judgment interest, and $218K in post-judgment interest.
The PTAB recently designated as precedential its 2013 decision that assignor estoppel is not a defense for patent owners in IPR proceedings in Athena Automation Ltd. v. Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd., IPR2013-00290, Paper 18 (P.T.A.B. October 25, 2013) (designated precedential August 2, 2017).
On July 14, 2017, in a stunning reversal of fortune, a federal court in San Jose, CA, which had previously set aside a $200 million jury verdict in favor of Merck, has now awarded accused infringer Gilead Sciences $13,857,106 in attorneys’ fees.
Knobbe Martens, one of the nation’s leading intellectual property and technology law firms, recently announced that senior partner Gerard von Hoffmann has relocated from Irvine to the firm’s San Diego office in Del Mar Heights.
