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.

On July 18, 2017, after two years of litigation and a jury trial, a Texas federal court ordered Eli Lilly & Co. (“Eli Lilly”) to pay Erfindergemeinschaft UroPep GbR (“UroPep”) $20,000,000 in damages and over $930,000 in pre-judgment interest for patent infringement.

On July 18, 2017, the United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) instituted a covered business method (“CBM”) patent review for U.S. Patent No. 8,955,029 (“the ’029 patent”) on grounds of unpatentability under 35 U.S.C. § 101.[1]

For many students in the United States, the first day of school is less than a month away. This means the back-to-school shopping season has started. Teenagers, middle schoolers, and fashion conscious parents of elementary school children will visit malls and outlets in search of new clothing, shoes, and accessories. Many of these shoppers will also visit the websites of retail stores and e-commerce websites.   

In Shipping and Transit, LLC v. Hall Enterprises, Inc., a district court recently held that a patent infringement case was “exceptional” under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and the defendant was entitled to recover attorney fees and costs from the plaintiff. The court’s ruling was in part because the plaintiff’s position was “objectively unreasonable” with regard to the validity of asserted claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101.