TECSEC, INC., v. ADOBE INC.

Before Prost, Reyna, and Taranto. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Summary: Even if it would be objectively reasonable to view a defendant’s conduct as noninfringing, the intent element of induced infringement may still be established through the defendant’s subjective belief.

The People’s Republic of China (“China”) has introduced its first comprehensive data privacy law, which will explicitly protect the personal information of its residents. On October 21, 2020, China’s legislative body submitted a draft bill for the Personal Information Protection Law (“PIPL”) that would prohibit businesses and enterprises from misusing the personal information of Chinese residents. Like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the PIPL defines personal information broadly to include various types of electronic or otherwise recorded information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit found in favor of Costco in the latest chapter of an over seven-year legal battle between Tiffany and Co. (“Tiffany’s”) and Costco Wholesale Corporation (“Costco”). A three judge panel overturned the $21 million award granted to Tiffany’s, after a summary judgment decision in Tiffany’s favor in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (“SDNY”). In a unanimous decision, the court concluded that the SDNY improperly granted Tiffany’s motion for summary judgment, which prevented a jury from deciding key issues of fact. Thus, the SDNY decision was vacated and the case remanded for trial.

For the past two years, businesses have been scrambling to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) – the first comprehensive data privacy law in the United States with broad extraterritorial reach. This was a difficult task for most businesses because of high compliance costs, the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting government shutdowns, and uncertainty regarding the scope and applicability of the law due to the CCPA’s constant state of flux.

ST. JUDE MEDICAL, LLC v. SNYDERS HEART VALVE LLC

Before Newman, O’Malley, and Taranto. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim must be considered in light of the specification.

WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC., v. SASSO

Before Newman, Schall, and Wallach. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

Summary: A federal court properly exercises its discretion to abstain from deciding declaratory judgment claims when the parties’ dispute can better be settled in a pending state court proceeding.

IMMUNEX CORPORATION v. SANOFI-AVENTIS U.S. LLC

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

Summary: Expiration of a patent during appeal from IPR does not trigger claim construction under the Phillips standard when the expiration was caused by litigant’s filing of terminal disclaimer and the IPR was filed before the Phillips standard applied in all IPRs.

On October 12, 2020, the California Attorney General published a Third Set of Modified Proposed Regulations (“Modified Regulations”) even though the final text of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) regulations are already in full effect. In sum, the Modified Regulations only make minor edits to the final CCPA regulations. They provide additional guidance on how to implement the CCPA’s right to opt-out of sale of personal information and modify the text related to how authorized agents can submit data privacy requests on behalf of consumers.

ANTENNASYS, INC. v. AQYR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

Before, O’Malley, Bryson, and Reyna. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire

Summary: The Federal Circuit held that claim construction issues in a contract dispute did not meet the “substantiality” prong of the Supreme Court’s Gunn v. Minton test for independent federal jurisdiction.

On September 25, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the California Genetic Information Privacy Act (“GIPA”), about which we reported here.