NIAZI LICENSING CORPORATION v. ST. JUDE MEDICAL S.C., INC.

Before Taranto, Bryson, and Stoll.  Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Summary: Providing examples in the claim language and written description may provide definiteness to descriptive terms.   

ROCHE DIAGNOSTICS CORPORATION v. MESO SCALE DIAGNOSTICS, LLC
Before Newman, Prost, and Taranto. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Summary: A finding of inducing infringement requires knowledge that the induced acts constitute patent infringement, which can be established by a finding of ‘willful blindness’, a standard of limited scope that surpasses recklessness and negligence.

LITTELFUSE, INC. v. MERSEN USA EP CORP.
Before Prost, Bryson, and Stoll. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Summary: The Federal Circuit vacated a claim construction that violated the doctrine of claim differentiation by eliminating the scope of several dependent claims.

GENUINE ENABLING TECHNOLOGY LLC V. NINTENDO CO., LTD

Before Newman, Reyna, and Stoll. Appeal from the Western District of Washington.

Summary: A finding of prosecution disclaimer must be supported by an unambiguous disavowal within the intrinsic record.

Last Friday, ImmunoGen won an appeal at the Federal Circuit in ImmunoGen, Inc. v. Hirshfeld. The lawsuit is a civil action to order the granting of U.S. Application No. 14/509,809 (‘809), titled “Anti-FOLR Immunoconjugate Dosing Regimens”:

Rasmussen Instruments, LLC (“Rasmussen”) won a $20M jury verdict against DePuy Synthes (“Depuy”), a part of Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies. Rasmussen asserted Patent Nos. US 9,492,180 (‘180 patent) and US 10,517,583 (‘583 patent), both titled “Arthroplasty systems and methods for optimally aligning and tensioning a knee prosthesis,” against DePuy’s “Balanced Sizer” product for its Attune® Knee System.

ALMIRALL, LLC v. AMNEAL PHARMACEUTICALS LLC

Before Lourie, Chen, and Cunningham. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: Presumption of obviousness based on overlapping ranges applied where a prior-art reference disclosed an element in the claimed range that was similar but not identical to the claimed element.

APPLE INC. v. MPH TECHNOLOGIES OY

Before Moore, Prost, and Taranto. Appeal from Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The proximity of concepts in a claim may link the concepts together and affect the plain meaning of the claim.

HOYT AUGUSTUS FLEMING V. CIRRUS DESIGN CORPORATION

Before Lourie, Hughes, and Stoll. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: A claim is obvious where “the proposed combination of [the references]—rather than one of the individual references—discloses the disputed claim limitations.” A motion to amend under the Administrative Procedure Act may be denied where proposed amended claims lack written description support.

On February 10, 2022, in Junker v. Medical Components, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s grant of summary judgment of no invalidity under the “on-sale bar” of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (pre-AIA). Mr. Junker’s lawsuit alleged that Medical Components, Inc. and Martech Medical Products, Inc. (collectively, “MedComp”) infringed the claimed design of U.S. Design Patent No. D450,839 (the “D’839 patent”), entitled “Handle for Introducer Sheath.”