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In this patent infringement action, Potter Voice submitted an expert declaration of David Klausner for the purpose of claim construction. Microsoft moved to exclude the declaration under Fed.R.Evid. 702.

The district court explained the background of the patent as follows: In 1998, United States patent number 5,729,659 (the ‘659 patent) was issued to Jerry L. Potter. Plaintiff, Potter voice Technologies LLC, now owns the ‘659 patent. The ‘659 patent describes a method and apparatus for controlling a digital computer using oral input. The patent infringement claims alleged in Potter’s complaint are based on four distinct software products: (1) BlackBerry Voice Commands; (2) Google Voice Search; (3) Google Voice Actions; and (4) Windows Speech Commands. Potter alleges that the defendants infringe the ‘659 patent when these software products are used on mobile phones.
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Plaintiff GPNE Corporation (“GPNE”) filed a patent infringement action against Apple. As part of its case, GPNE wanted to retain two experts, Ghobad Heidari and Kamran Etemad, and Apple objected for two reasons. First, as explained by the court, Apple argued that if Heidari and Etemad are given access to Apple’s confidential information (as would be required for them to act as experts), Apple would suffer extreme prejudice in the marketplace as both Heidari and Etemad are active in patenting mobile technology. Second, Apple argued that the patent prosecution bar within the protective order prohibited Heidari and Etemad from being granted access to its proprietary information, as both men have patent applications now pending before the Patent and Trademark Office.

After citing some recent decisions from the Northern District of California on experts, the court considered the risk to Apple if Heidari were granted access to its confidential information. “Heidari presents precisely the same risks as the expert in Symantec. He is an active consultant in the field at issue. In the very recent past, he has worked for several of Apple’s competitors, and there has been no representation or agreement that he will not do so again in the very near future. Apple points out several ways in which the information to which he would be exposed as an expert in this case could influence his work as a consultant on patent licensing, reverse engineering, and portfolio management, even if he were to make his best efforts to cabin the information off in his mind, and the court finds these concerns persuasive. Furthermore, despite the concerns raised by Apple, GPNE has not identified any unique qualifications or knowledge that make Heidari better suited than any other expert to serve.”
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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 of unpatentability alleged in the petition.

After institution of trial, Patent Owner, MobileMedia Ideas LLC (“MobileMedia”), filed a patent owner response, Blackberry filed a reply, and an oral hearing was held on October 18, 2013. On December 16, 2013, the parties filed a joint motion to terminate the IPR proceeding, which the PTAB only granted in part, terminating the proceeding with respect to Blackberry, but not with respect to MobileMedia.
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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 a defendant in an infringement lawsuit before bringing their own cause of action, as a plaintiff, for declaratory relief that the patent-at-issue is invalid, unenforceable, or not infringed. The Act, however, requires that the party seeking declaratory relief establish that a “case or controversy” exist from the moment it files its action. Although many courts, including the Supreme Court, have provided guidance as to where to draw the line above which a sufficient case or controversy exits, that line is still a murky one. What actions must a patent owner take–and when must it take those actions–to trigger the requisite case or controversy allowing an accused infringer to file its action first?

Well, the Federal Circuit recently added further guidance on the issue. In Danisco US, Inc., v. Novozymes A/S, a unanimous panel of the Federal Circuit reversed a district court and held that the patent holder’s conduct prior to the issuance of the patent can form a sufficient case or controversy for declaratory relief.

The relationship between the parties in the case provides important background. The declaratory judgment plaintiff, Danisco, and defendant, Novozymes, compete to develop and supply Rapid Starch Liquefaction (“RSL”) products. Since about 2001, Novozymes had sued Danisco for patent infringement numerous times. In one of those suits, Novozymes amended a pending patent application to claim one of Danisco’s new products, then sued Danisco on the same day the patent issued.

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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 Apple’s VPN On Demand and FaceTime. The jury returned a verdict in favor of VirnetX, finding that the patens were not invalid and that Apple infringed the asserted claims. To compensate VirnetX for Apple’s infringement, the jury awarded VirnetX $368,160,000 in damages.

After the jury trial, VirnetX filed a motion for an ongoing royalty against Apple, requesting that the royalty rate be enhanced from .52% to 1.52%. VirnetX argued the royalty rate should be trebled because of changed circumstances in light of the Georgia-Pacific factors and Apple’s now willful infringement and because the bargaining positions of the parties would have dramatically shifted in favor of VirnetX. VirnetX also relied on Apple’s continuing infringement post-trial, and its inability to easily implement the non-infringing alternatives discussed at trial.
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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 toilets, and more specifically to improvements in the bushing of the actuating handle assembly that will provide for user-selectable, dual mode operation of the flush valve.” As explained by the district court, the improvement is a mechanism that allows a user to select one of two flush volumes based on the direction of actuation of the handle: a full flush volume to evacuate solid waste from the bowl or a reduced flush volume to remove liquid waste.

The district court explained that Sloan hired Leone Flosi of Quest Consultants Int’l Ltd. (“Quest”) to perform an investigation of bathrooms containing either Sloan or Zurn manual dual flush valves and handles at Sloan’s damage expert, Mr. Bero’s, direction. Specifically, Sloan hired Mr. Flosi and Quest to “assist in estimating the ratio of collateral product sales relative to manual dual-flush flushometer valves.” Mr. Bero used this data to project and calculate the profits that Sloan allegedly lost on collateral sales of unpatented products.
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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 “coupled its invocation of the disclaimer made available under appropriate circumstances by Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 8(b)(5) with the language ‘and, therefore, denies those allegations.'” The district court found that these answers were problematic. “But it is of course oxymoronic for a party to assert (presumably in good faith) that it lacks even enough information to form a belief as to the truth of an allegation, then proceed to deny it. Because such a denial is at odds with the pleader’s obligations under Rule 11(b), the quoted language is stricken from each of those paragraphs of the Answer.”
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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 Plantronics’ expert had done very little infringement analysis in this regard. As the district court explained, “plaintiff’s infringement expert, Professor Katz, did nothing more than try defendants’ products on various (unidentified) ear molds and state that defendants’ products infringed based on conclusory ipse dixit recitations of claim limitations with no explanation or analysis.”
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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 infringed its patent and that Limelight’s inducement alone is sufficient to prove infringement. In motion to stay, Apple argued that a reversal of the Federal Circuit’s decision could effectively end Emblaze’s case because Emblaze has no proof that any Apple customer directly infringes the method claims at issue.

Emblaze opposed the motion arguing that much of the case would not be subject to Akamai because 10 of the claims in suit are apparatus claims, which Akamai does not address. Emblaze further explained that because Emblaze’s damages theory is not dependent on the number of claims Apple infringes, a reversal in Akamai would substantially change the case.
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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 of the case presented a prime opportunity for the Federal Circuit to revisit the question of what deference, if any, it should give to a district court’s claim constructions. During the district court proceedings, the parties disputed the meaning of “voltage means.” As per usual, the district court analyzed the patent’s intrinsic evidence relating to the claim term. However, the district court also accepted testimony from expert witnesses and the inventor. After analyzing the different types of evidence, the district court sided with the patentee and ruled that the term should be given its plain meaning, as opposed to a more specific meaning as a means-plus-function term.

Applying the non-deferential Cybor standard of review, a panel from the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s claim construction. The panel held that the term is a means-plus-function term and required disclosure of sufficient corresponding structure in the patent specification. Based on that conclusion, the panel invalidated the claims for indefiniteness. The patentee requested rehearing, arguing that the interpretation of documents is a fundamentally factual exercise and, therefore, a district court’s interpretation of patent claims requires some deference on appeal. In this case, the patentee argued that, on a deferential review, the district court would not, or should not, have been reversed. The Federal Circuit undertook rehearing en banc for the purpose of reconsidering the standard of appellate review of claim construction.

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