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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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Patent Harbor filed a patent infringement action against Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (“Fox”) and other studios, such as The Weinstein Company LLC, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Home Box Office, Inc., and Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. (collectively the “Studio Defendants”). The Studio Defendants allegedly infringed the patent by the use of authoring of scene selection menus included in DVDs and Blu-ray discs. The patent-in-suit describes an improvement to an interactive video system capable of displaying content based on video.

Claim 6 of the patent-in-suit states: “A method for assembling content addressable video, comprising: storing, in addressable memory, a plurality of [frames] of video data in storage locations having addresses, each frame defining a video image having a content for display; storing tags in memory for [frames] of video data in the plurality, the tags indicating the contents of the video images defined by the associated [frames]; executing program steps which assemble and display a content video image in response to the tags, the content video image including positions indicating the content of corresponding [frames] of video data in the plurality; and executing program steps which associate the positions in the content video image with addresses of storage locations storing corresponding frames of video data.”
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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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