Articles Posted in Federal Circuit

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Plaintiffs Transunion Intelligence LLC and Trans Union LLC (collectively, “Transunion”) filed a patent infringement action against Search America over two patents that are directed to a computer-implemented method and software that is used to access a person’s eligibility to receive financial assistance for healthcare services. Transunion asserted both direct infringement and inducing infringement of one of the patents-in-suit.

Search America moved to dismiss the inducing infringement claim, asserting that Transunion had failed to plead that Search America had the specific intent to infringe the patent-in-suit. The district court disagreed. “As discussed at he hearing on Search America’s motion, however, the Court believes that Transunion has pleaded a plausible claim of induced infringement against Search America. In its complaint, Transunion pleads that Search America knew of the ‘937 patent, and Transunion pleads specific facts in support of that allegation – namely, that Search America studied the ‘937 patent to distinguish it from Search America’s own patent application. Fourth Am. Compl. para. 11. Transunion also alleges that Search America performed all but one of the steps of the ‘937 patent and that either Search America or a customer working with Search America performed the remaining step – namely, the inputting of patient data. Fourth Am. Compl. Ex. B at 2. Transunion further alleges that Search America’s customers performed the ‘inputting’ step by populating an on-line form created, controlled, and provided by Search America. Id.”
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With the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Akamai Techs., Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 18532 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 31, 2012), the elements for proving inducing infringement changed significantly. As a result, we can expect that a number of plaintiffs in pending patent cases will seek to amend their complaints to take advantage of the new standard. Whether amendment will be granted or not will vary depending on the stage of the case.
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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 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Delaware court’s finding that Medtronic Inc. did not infringe Boston Scientific patents relating to cardiac rhythm therapy (CRT) devices known as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). Medtronic, Inc. v. Boston Scientific Corp., No. 2011-1313 (Fed. Cir. September 18, 2012). The Federal Circuit found that the lower court had improperly placed the burden of showing non-infringement on the patent owner instead of on the declaratory judgment plaintiff-licensee.

The patents at issue (RE38,119 and RE39,897) were owned by Mirowski Family Ventures LLC (MFV) and exclusively licensed to Guidant Corp., which was acquired by Boston Scientific Inc. Medtronic had a sublicense to the ‘119 patent, which allowed it to challenge its validity, enforceability and scope via a declaratory judgment action. As per the sublicense, Medtronic began paying royalties. It also challenged the patent’s validity. A Litigation Tolling Agreement (LTA) was entered, which stayed litigation and called for MFV to identify Medtronic products that it believed were covered by the ‘119 patent. Under the LTA, if Medtronic disagreed with the list of patented products it had the right to retain the license but was required to seek declaratory relief of non-infringement in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. The fact that Medtronic remained a licensee meant that MFV could not counterclaim for patent infringement. Medtronic did disagree with MFV’s listing of patented products, thus giving rise to the lower court action.
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Last December, the district court in the Northern District of California denied Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Apple had moved for the preliminary injunction based on alleged infringement of three design patents and one utility patent. After the denial of the preliminary injunction motion, Apple appealed the order to the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit affirmed most of the district court’s order denying the preliminary injunction but remanded to the district court for further proceedings on one of the design patents. On remand, the Federal Circuit directed that the district court consider the balance of hardships and whether the public interest favored an injunction with respect to the one design patent.

The district court had found that Apple had established that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 likely infringed the design patent and that Apple was likely to suffer irreparable harm as a result of the infringing conduct. But the district court denied the motion because it found that the design patent was likely invalid based on several prior art references. The Federal Circuit upheld the findings of infringement and irreparable harm, but reversed the district court’s finding of invalidity as to one design patent.
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On remand to the district court after the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision in Therasense v. Becton, Dickinson and Co., the district court reviewed the procedural posture of the case and the landmark Therasense decision. The district court noted that “Therasense worked a seismic shift in the law of inequitable conduct,” and particularly that “materiality would henceforth use a but-for definition, meaning that submission of the withheld item would have led to a rejection.” The district court also analyzed the decision including the closeness of the vote on the new standard, stating that “[d]espite the closeness of the decision and the importance of the question to our patent system and national economy, no petition for certiorari was filed in the Supreme Court.”

Before applying the facts to the new standard articulated by the Federal Circuit, the district court noted the Federal Circuit’s instructions on remand (1) that the “district court should determine whether there is clear an convincing evidence demonstrating that Sanghera or Pope knew of the EPO brief, knew of their materiality, and made the conscious decision not to disclose them in order to deceive the PTO” and (2) the “district court should determine whether the PTO would have granted the patent but for Abbott’s failure to disclose the EPO briefs. …”
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Defendant American Master Lease LLC (“AML”) appealed the decision of Judge Guilford of the Central District of California holding that all claims of U.S. Patent No. 6, 292,788 were invalid for failing to meet the subject matter eligibility requirements of Section 101 of the Patent Statute. The Federal Circuit (in a panel consisting of Circuit Judges Prost, Schall and Moore) affirmed the invalidity of the claims based on the district court’s pre-In re Bilski application of the machine or transformation test.

The claims at issue relate to an investment tool to enable property owners to buy and sell property without incurring tax liability pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 1031 (“1031 Exchange”). All claims in the ‘788 patent are method claims, with claim 1 being representative:

1. A method of creating a real estate investment instrument adapted for performing tax-deferred exchanges comprising:

aggregating real property to form a real estate portfolio;

encumbering the property in the real estate portfolio with a master agreement; and
creating a plurality of deedshares by dividing title in the real estate portfolio into a plurality of tenant-in-common deeds of at least one predetermined denomination, each of the plurality of deedshares subject to a provision in the master agreement for reaggregating the plurality of tenant-in-common deeds after a specified interval.
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The parties filed cross-motions for summary on the issue of inequitable conduct. The district court had previously denied summary judgment motions on the issue of inequitable conduct but that was prior to the Federal Circuit’s decision in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton Dickinson and Co., 649 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Circ. 2011) (en banc). The district court granted the parties request to re-brief the issue in light of Therasense.

The plaintiff asserted on its renewed summary judgment motion that there was insufficient evidence of specific intent to deceive the Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”). The defendant did not dispute that there was no direct evidence of specific intent in the case. Instead, the defendant relied on circumstantial evidence, arguing that the only logical inference from the evidence is one of intent to deceive the PTO. To make this argument, the defendant relied on the fact that two of the inventors knew of two significant references and failed to disclose them to the PTO. The district court noted, relying on Therasense, that “[p]roving that the applicant knew of a reference, should have known of its materiality, and decided not to submit it to the PTO does not prove specific intent to deceive.” 649 F.3d at 1290. Based on this quote from Therasense, the district court concluded that the mere fact that the inventors failed to disclose these references was insufficient to defeat summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff.
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Pfizer filed a patent infringement action against Teva Pharmaceuticals (“Teva”) over a patent that claims the use of certain chemical compounds claimed as a method to treat erectile dysfunction. During the case, Teva filed a motion to amend its answer and counterclaims to alleged a defense and counterclaim for inequitable conduct. The district court granted the motion, but noted that it was a close case.

Several months later, Teva moved to amend its answer and counterclaim to change its allegations supporting the inequitable conduct claim. The district court denied the requested amendment on the ground of prejudice and futility because the amendment was late and would prejudice Pfizer and the individuals named in the proposed amendment and because the amendment failed to make any plausible showing of but-for materiality.
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Plaintiff, Innova Patent Licensing, LLC (“Innova”) filed a patent infringement action against Alcatel-Lucent Holdings (“Alcatel”) for a patent claiming methods for using a mail processing program to scan electronic messages to obtain additional information. Alcatel challenged the patent on the ground that it did not claim eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and moved to dismiss.

The court stated that “[u]nder the patent laws, certain broad categories of subject matter are eligible for patent protection,” and cited the language from Section 101 (” Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title”) and the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218, 3225 (2010) (“in choosing such expansive terms modified by the comprehensive ‘any,’ Congress plainly contemplated that the patent laws would be given wide scope”).
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