In Re THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Before Prost, Lourie, and Reyna. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: A claim directed to an innovative mathematical process to generate data was a patent ineligible algorithm that lacked any improvement of a technological process under the two-step Alice inquiry.

Defendants in US civil suits have sought to withhold discoverable material because of privacy concerns based on foreign laws, such as the GDPR. Almost all cases on the issue of US discovery and transnational privacy statutes have found that such concerns do not override parties’ obligation to comply with discovery requests.

UNILOC 2017 LLC v. FACEBOOK INC.

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

Summary: 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) does not preclude Federal Circuit review of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s post-institution application of § 315(e)(1) estoppel

EDGEWELL PERS. CARE BRANDS, LLC v. MUNCHKIN, INC.

Before Newman, Moore, and Hughes. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Summary: Apparatus claims’ non-functional terms should be construed to cover all of the apparatus’ uses; vitiation cannot be used to shortcut the doctrine of equivalents analysis.

Virginia just became the second state to pass a comprehensive privacy law, the Consumer Data Protection Act (“CDPA”). Business and privacy professionals should evaluate the ramifications: what does it require, who does it apply to, and what are the penalties?

BAYER HEALTHCARE LLC v. BAXALTA INC.

Before Newman, Linn, and Stoll. Appeal from the District of Delaware.

Summary: In upholding a $173 million dollar award, the Federal Circuit permitted a damages expert to present a range of reasonable potential royalty rates and found no Seventh Amendment right to jury trial existed for supplemental damages calculated using the jury’s chosen royalty rate and undisputed infringing sales data

RAIN COMPUTING, INC. v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO. LTD.

Before Lourie, Dyk, and Moore. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Summary: The structure for performing a function of a means-plus-function term may not be a general purpose computer without an algorithm for performing the function.

BITMANAGEMENT SOFTWARE GMBH v. UNITED STATES

Before NEWMAN, DYK, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges. Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Summary: The U.S. Navy infringed Bitmanagement’s software copyright by copying its software outside the scope of an implied license.

It’s generally recognized that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can apply to entities outside the European Union. However, scant court rulings guide non-European controllers and processors on this question. The English High Court’s recent decision in Soriano v. Forensic News LLC and others (2021) helps fill the gap.

SYNQOR, INC. v. VICOR CORPORATION

Before Dyk, Clevenger, and Hughes. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: A finding during inter partes reexamination that two references would not be combined precluded a finding of obviousness based on the same two references in a later proceeding.