NETWORK-1 TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY, HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY

Before Prost, Newman, and Bryson. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Summary: A party joined to an IPR under 35 U.S.C. § 315(c) is not statutorily estopped from raising in district court any invalidity grounds other than those that were instituted in the IPR, because the joining party cannot raise additional grounds during the IPR.

On April 20, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court granted writ of certiorari in Van Buren v. United States to consider whether a person who is authorized to access information on a computer for certain purposes violates Section 1030(a)(2) of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) if he accesses the same information for an improper purpose. Oral argument before the Supreme Court will be held on November 30, 2020.

On August 20, 2020, former Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan was charged with obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony for knowingly concealing a hack of Uber in 2016. Based on Sullivan’s complaint, individuals and corporations can learn valuable lessons in responding to cyber intrusions by considering: (1) what Sullivan allegedly did wrong; (2) what corporate officers are required to do after a cyber intrusion; and (3) how a company should prepare in anticipation of a possible intrusion.

UCLA Biodesign is currently inviting professionals in engineering, medicine, design, computer science, and business to apply for an exciting year-long fellowship, starting in the summer of 2021, associated with the world-class resources at UCLA Health. Now in its 2nd year, UCLA Biodesign fellows will join a team of like-minded healthcare innovators and leaders on a three-stage development process, from the identification of meaningful clinical opportunities, to invention and solution development, and to the initiation of a new venture.

FACEBOOK, INC., V. WINDY CITY INNOVATIONS LLC

Before Prost, Plager, and O’Malley. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The Federal Circuit has jurisdiction to review challenges to the Board’s joinder decision in an instituted IPR. An IPR petitioner may not join itself to an earlier IPR in which it was already a party, and may not add new claims or issues to the earlier IPR through such joinder.

PHYTELLIGENCE, INC. v. WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
Before Prost, Reyna, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Summary: Under Washington law, a contract must be definite enough for a court to enforce it without needing to supply missing terms.

BAXALTA INC. V. GENENTECH, INC.
Before Moore, Plager, and Wallach. Appeal from the District of Delaware

Summary: A district court erred by interpreting a specification’s description of an “antibody” as a definition, when that description contradicted other portions of the specification and several dependent claims.

NEVILLE v. FOUNDATION CONSTRUCTORS, INC.

Before Lourie, O’Malley, and Chen. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Summary: The Federal Circuit affirmed a construction of “end plate” that required a flat external surface, and therefore precluded an infringement theory in which the “end plate” was an imaginary slice inside the accused product.

EGENERA, INC. v. CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.
Before Prost, Stoll, and Reyna. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Summary: A patentee that successfully petitioned to correct a patent’s inventorship by removing a named inventor was permitted to seek a second correction to restore the same inventor, based on an intervening claim construction that the patentee had opposed.

With the rapid spread of COVID-19, countries around the world are implementing contact-tracing practices, which involve identifying people who may have COVID-19 and notifying those individuals’ contacts for them to get tested and/or quarantined. Although contact tracing is an effective tool to interrupt further transmission of a virus, it raises privacy concerns. Some of these privacy concerns include whether the government authority or private sector partner (e.g., a mobile application service provider) is: (1) providing adequate notice to data subjects regarding the personal data collected, what it is used for, and who it is shared with; (2) obtaining the data subjects’ consent before collecting the personal data; (3) limiting the amount of personal data collected; (4) using the personal data only for its intended purpose; (5) deleting the personal data when it is no longer needed; and (6) providing data subjects certain rights, such as the right to access, correct and delete their personal data. These privacy measures are particularly important in the modern era because contact-tracing mobile applications have the capacity to collect massive amounts of personal data relating to a person’s daily life, including their precise geolocation data, the persons they interact with, and the places they frequently visit, which may include places of worship and political organizations.