Petitioner, BlackBerry Corporation and BlackBerry Limited (“Blackberry”), filed a petition on October 30, 2012, for an inter partes review (“IPR”) of claims 1-12 of US Patent No. 6,871,048 (“the ‟048 patent”). On March 18, 2013, the Board instituted trial on claims 1-12 of the ‟048 patent based on all grounds…
Accused infringers have long relied on the Declaratory Judgment Act (“the Act”) to bring actions against patent owners to clear any cloud over their accused business activities. To that end, the Act has served as a powerful tool. Accused infringers do not even have to wait to be named as…
On August 11, 2010, VirnetX filed suit alleging that Apple and several other defendants infringed several U.S. Patents, which generally describe a method for transparently creating a virtual private network (“VPN”) between a client computer and a target computer or disclosing a secure domain name service. The accused products were…
Zurn Industries, Inc. (“Zurn”) moved to exclude Sloan Valve Company’s (“Sloan”) consultant witness and other testimony based on the consultant’s investigation. The patent-at-issue, U.S. Patent No. 7,607,635, entitled “Flush Valve Handle Assembly Providing Dual Mode Operation” (the “‘635 Patent”), pertains “to flush valves for use with plumbing fixtures such as…
Sonic Industry (“Sonic”) filed a patent infringement action against iRobot Corporation (“iRobot”). iRobot filed an Answer and Affirmative Defenses to the patent infringement complaint. The district court issued a memorandum order sua sponte because of some “problematic aspects of that responsive pleading.” The district court noted that iRobot had regularly…
Plantronics, Inc. (“Plantronics”) filed a patent infringement action against ALIPH, Inc. (“ALIPH”). After expert reports were submitted, ALIPH moved to exclude the expert report of Plantronics’ infringement expert. At the heart of the action is the fit of ear buds in a human ear. However, the district court found that…
In this patent infringement action between Emblaze and Apple, Apple filed a motion to stay the case pending the recent grant of certiorari in Akamai v. Limelight Networks. In Akamai, a divided en banc Federal Circuit panel held that Akamai did not have to prove that any Limelight customer directly…
In a long-awaited decision, the Federal Circuit ruled en banc to uphold the the de novo standard for appellate review of claim construction issues, which was previously established in another en banc decision, Cybor Corp. v. FAS Technologies, Inc. 138 F.3d 1448 (Fed. Cir. 1998). The facts and procedural background…
PersonalWeb Technologies, LLC (“PersonalWeb”) filed a patent infringement action against Google for infringement of its “Truenames” patents. Google filed a motion for sanctions based on a contention that PersonalWeb systematically deleted relevant emails when it reasonably anticipated litigation. PersonalWeb opposed the motion arguing that it had an email retention policy…
Orbit Irrigation Products (“Orbit”) filed a patent infringement action against Sunhills International (“Sunhills”). After the completion of certain discovery, Sunhills filed a motion to compel. Sunhills contended that Orbit had failed to provide a computation of damages as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 and failed to produce…