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Earlier this summer, the district court enjoined Samsung from “making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States, or importing into the United States, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer, and any product that is no more than colorably different from this specified product and embodies any design contained in U.S. Design Patent No. D504,889.” After the injunction issued, Samsung filed a notice of appeal to the Federal Circuit. The appeal remained pending as the case proceeded to trial.

After the trial, the jury found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not infringe Apple’s design patent. The district court subsequently entered a judgment in favor of Apple on the jury verdict. Based on the judgment, Samsung filed a motion for the district court to dissolve the injunction and to retain the $2.6 million bond posted for the injunction. The district court denied the motion due to the pending appeal but issued an indicative ruling pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 62.1 that Samsung’s motion raised a substantial issue. The Federal Circuit subsequently issued a limited remand order to permit the district court to rule on the motion to dissolve.
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Vederi owns several patents which cover certain methods for enabling users to navigate a geographic area visually from a device, including a personal computer. Vederi asserted that Google’s Street View service, which allows users to explore geographic location by viewing street-level imagery, infringed its patents. Both parties cross moved for summary judgment on the issue of infringement.

In its summary judgment motion, Google asserted that Street View did not infringe any of Vederi’s patents because each of Vederi’s patents contains the limitation “depicting views of objects in the geographic area, the view being substantially elevations,” which relate to the retrieved images presented to the user. During the Markman hearing, the court construed whether this term applied to curved or spherical views (Vederi’s position) or just vertical or flat views (Google’s position). The court adopted Google’s position “because Vederi’s method of taking, processing and displaying images creates only vertical flat views, not spherical ones.”
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In June 2012, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California enjoined Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone because it likely infringed Apple’s 8,086,604 patent (the “‘604 patent”) and because Apple was likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction. Apple prevailed at the district court level based on claim 6 of the ‘604 patent — which is practiced by Siri, Apple’s popular voice search companion.

Independent claim 6 is directed to an apparatus for “unified search” using heuristic modules to search multiple data storage locations. As explained by the Federal Circuit, “[u]nified search refers to the ability to access information on more than one data storage location through a single interface. For example, a device equipped with unified search allows the user to search the local memory of the device as well as the Internet by entering a single search query.”
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The plaintiff, Mytee Products, Inc. (“Mytee”) manufactures and sells a sealing fan under the name Tradewind. Defendants Studebaker Enterprises, Inc. (“Studebaker”) and Dri-Eaz Products, Inc. (“Dri-Eaz”) were assigned ownership rights in the patents-in-suit, which are both entitled “Shrouded Floor Drying Fan.” Another of the defendants, Skagit Northwest Holdings, Inc. (“Skagit”) is in the business of manufacturing room drying fans that are considered to be covered by the patents-in-suit.

Counsel for Studebaker and Skagit sent a letter to Mytee asserting that Mytee’s Tradewind fan infringes their patents. Mytee then filed a declaratory judgment action asserting that the Tradewind did not infringe the patents and that the patents were invalid. Dri-Eaz and Studebaker subsequently executed a covenant not to sue to Mytee and provided the covenant not to sue to Mytee. Defendants then filed a motion to dismiss this patent infringement action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
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This article was first published in Vol. 12, Issue 4 of E-Commerce Law Reports and is reprinted with permission.

As the smart phone wars continue to rage across the world, the verdict in the Apple v. Samsung case is the latest battle to end, at least for now, in favor of Apple. Given Apple’s victory, it is likely that Apple will continue to press its offensive throughout the globe, particularly in the United States. Even though Apple has suffered some set backs, most recently in South Korea, the victory over Samsung in the Northern District of California will spur on additional lawsuits, both in the United States and in other countries. Until Google (perhaps through Motorola) or one of the Android handset makers, such as Samsung or HTC, achieves a victory over Apple, the smart phone wars are not likely to slow anytime soon.
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Graff/Ross Holdings LLP (“Graff/Ross”) filed a patent infringement action against the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (“Freddie Mac”) for patent infringement. Freddie Mac moved to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) on the ground that the patent was invalid for claiming unpatentable subject matter. The district court referred the motion to the Magistrate Judge who recommended granting Freddie Mac’s motion after converting it into a motion for summary judgment. Graff/Ross objected to the district court.

Claim 101 of the patent-in-suit provides:

A method for making a financial analysis output having a system-determine purchase price for at least one component from property in consummating a sale, the financial analysis output being made by steps including:

Converting input data, representing at lest one component from property, wherein the property is a fixed income asset, into input digital electrical signals representing the input data;

Proving a digital electrical computer system controlled by a processor electronically connected to receive said input digital electrical signals and electronically connected to an output means;

Controlling a digital electrical computer processor to manipulate electrical signals to compute a system-determined purchase price for at least once component from property in consummating a sale and corresponding purchase of the component; and
Generating the financial analysis output at said output means.
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Complainant Knowles Electronics, LLC (“Knowles”) initiated an investigation with the ITC against Analog Devices, Inc. Amkor Technology, Inc. and Avnet, Inc. (collectively, the Respondents) over silicon microphone packages. During the proceeding, Knowles submitted a rebuttal witness statement from Mr. Phillip Green. The Respondents moved to exclude the rebuttal statement alleging that Mr. Green’s opinion of the commercial success of the asserted claims of the patents-in-suit and the commercial success of Knowles products was outside the scope of his expertise.

According to the Administrative Law Judge, “Respondents assert Mr. Green fails to provide any evidence to support the nexus between the asserted patents and the commercial success of the Knowles MEMS products and cannot do so because he is not qualified to opine on what features resulted in their commercial success.”
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Garnet Digital sued AT&T, Apple and several other defendants for patent infringement and included a claim for indirect infringement. Garnet Digital accused all of the defendants of infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,379,421, which is entitled “Interactive Terminal for the Access of Remote Database Information.” Garnet Digital made the same allegation against each of the defendants, as follows: “[Defendant] directly or through intermediaries, made, had made, used , imported, provided, supplied, distributed, sold, and/or offered for sale products and/or systems (including at least [Defendant’s product(s)]) that infringed one or more claims of he 421 patnet, and/or induced infringement and/or contributed to the infringement of one or more of the claims of the 421 patent by its customers.”

AT&T and Apple, as well a many of the other defendants, moved to dismiss the indirect infringement claims. Verizon and other defendants also moved to dismiss the patent infringement claims. Both motions were made pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b(6) and the AT&T, Apple motion asserted that the indirect infringement claims did not comply with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Verizon asserted that the direct infringement claims were insufficient because they did not identify the patent claims asserted, they failed to identify products or services and failed to identify how accused products provide the claimed functionality to perform the claimed method. Garnet Digital responded by claiming that its complaint satisfied Rule 8 and specifically Form 18.
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Plaintiff Promega Corporation (“Promega”) filed an action against Life Technologies Corporation, Applied Biosystems, LLC and Invitrogen IP Holdings, Inc. for infringing and inducing infringement of five patents pertaining to copying of sequences of a DNA strand. In a previous licensing agreement, Life Technologies and Applied Biosystems were permitted to sell the Promega patented products within certain fields. Promega asserted that the defendants were making and selling the products into unpermitted fields, such as clinical diagnostics, clinical research and research markets. The jury agreed with Promega and awarded more than $50 million in damages.

Promega filed a motion to enhance damages, for attorneys and costs and a permanent injunction. The defendants filed a motion asserting that they were entitled to judgment in their favor based on their equitable defenses and also because Promega failed to prove its affirmative case.
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Before the patent trial between Apple and Samsung began, the district court issued a preliminary injunction against Samsung from making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States, or importing into the United States, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer. This preliminary injunction issued based on a finding that Apple was likely to prevail on its claim of infringement of Apple’s design patent, U.S. Design Patent No. D504,889 (the “D’889 patent). Samsung immediately filed a notice of appeal of the preliminary injunction motion and the appeal remains pending before the Federal Circuit.

After the jury trial, in which Apple accused many Samsung products, including the Galaxy Tab 10.1, of infringement, the jury found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not infringe the D’889 patent. Samsung then filed a motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction and to retain the $2.6 million bond that Apple had posted pending determination of damages suffered by Samsung as a result of the injunction.
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