After the district court determined that the plaintiff’s patent was infringed and was not invalid based on anticipation or obviousness, the district court held a bench trial on the issue of damages. The district court first analyzed the issue of lost profits. Finding that the plaintiff could not meet several…
As the battle between Oracle and Google approaches nearer to trial, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has denied Google’s objection to the selection of the pool of jurors who will hear the trial. The district court previously notified Oracle and Google that the district…
Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit for patent infringement, unfair competition and breach of fiduciary duty against several defendants, including AIM Sports. Plaintiffs design, develop and distribute firearm related tools, accessories and sporting optics. Defendants and plaintiffs had a business relationship that permitted Defendants to access trade secret information that belonged to…
In this patent infringement suit, the parties were unable to agree upon a written Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) protocol. Before the protocol was executed, the district court ordered the parties to comply with all scheduling orders and production deadliness regardless of whether they had agreed upon a final written agreement…
Abaxis, Inc. (“Abaxis”) filed a patent infringement action against Cepheid asserting that Cepheid infringed four of Abaxis’ patents. In its answer, Cepheid asserted a defense of inequitable conduct and Abaxis moved to dismiss the defense. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted the motion. In…
Mean-plus-function limitations in patent claims require special construction and can result in narrow patent claims that may not be beneficial to patent owners. As a result, many potential infringers will try to take advantage by claiming that certain terms in patent claims are in reality means-plus-function claims. The determination of…
Plaintiff Personal Audio, LLC (“Personal Audio”) filed a patent infringement action against Apple, Inc. (“Apple”) over two patents, which teach an audio program player that will play a sequence of audio program files and accept commands from the user to skip forward or backward in the sequence. After a jury…
After the Federal Circuit’s decision in Thereasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson and Co., 2011 WL 2028255 (Fed. Cir. 2011), it appeared likely that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to proceed on an inequitable conduct claim. A recent decision from the United States District Court for the District of…
Plaintiff, Jan Voda, M.D. (“Dr. Voda”), filed a patent infringement action against Medtronic Inc. (“Medtronic”) based on a patent that taught how to use a guide catheter to perform angioplasty of the left coronary artery. After Dr. Voda filed an amended complaint adding an additional patent, Medtronic moved to dismiss…
In a patent dispute over a method for detecting fetal Down syndrome, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts invalidated the patent owner’s patent because it was anticipated and obvious. The patent at issue describes screening methods to determine Down syndrome in which physicians estimate the risk…