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Apple suffered yet another set back in the Smartphone wars, this time losing its motion for a permanent injunction against Samsung. The district court denied the permanent injunction primarily on the ground that Apple could not show irreparable harm that would result to Apple if an injunction did not issue.

As explained by the district court, “[T]o satisfy the irreparable harm factor in a patent infringement suit, a patentee must establish both of the following requirements: 1) that absent an injunction, it will suffer irreparable harm, and 2) that a sufficiently strong causal nexus relates the alleged harm to the alleged infringement.” Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., 695 F.3d 1370, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“Apple II” ). This test requires a showing that consumers buy the infringing product “because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the . . . patent,” and not merely because it includes a feature of the type covered by the patent. Id. at 1376.”
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Plaintiff Suffolk Technologies, LLC (“Suffolk”) brought a patent infringement action against AOL and Google. Suffolk’s complaint alleged that “AOL and Google have infringed U.S. Patent No. 6,082,835 (135 patent) entitled “Internet Server and Method of Controlling an Internet Server.” The ‘835 patent claims a method of controlling an internet server whereby the server receives a hypertext transfer protocol file request from a web browser with an identification signal and then compares the identification signal with one or more predetermined identification signals, and based on the results of the comparison, a file may be transmitted from the server back to the requesting web browser.”

AOL and Google filed a motion to dismiss the action based on lack of standing. As explained by the district court, “[t]his patent infringement suit presents the increasingly common, but always vexing jurisdictional question whether plaintiff, the assignee of the patent in issue, possesses ”all substantial rights’ to the patent, such that it has standing to sue putative infringers.”
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Respondent ClearCorrect Pakistan (Private) Ltd. (“CCPL”) moved to compel complainant Align Technology, Inc. (“Align”) to produce documents and supplement responses to interrogatories. As explained by the Administrative Law Judge, “CCPL asserts that Align has provided incomplete responses to Document Request No. 9 and Interrogatory No. 13. CCPL says that Document Request No. 9 requires:

All documents reflecting communications occurring from January 1, 2010 and the present between Align (including its attorneys or anyone else acting on Align’s behalf) and any of the following: . . . (3) any person currently or formerly employed by ClearCorrect Pakistan (Private) Ltd.

CCPL says that Interrogatory No. 13 requires:

For every communication from January 1, 2010 between Align (including its attorneys or anyone else acting on Align’s behalf) and any person employed by ClearCorrect Pakistan (Private), Ltd. state: (1) every person participating in the communication, (2) the subject matter of the communication, (3) the date the communication occurred, and (4) whether any document or other recording medium captured the communication.”
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In this patent infringement action between Industrial Technology Research Institute (“ITRI”) and LG Corporation (“LG”), LG moved to compel ITRI to make a Taiwanese citizen, who was also the inventor of the patent-in-suit, but no longer an employee of ITRI, to sit for a deposition in the United States. The district court noted that “Courts have previously been called upon to address disputes over whether an agreement in which a non-U.S. resident inventor assigns patent rights to a business entity that subsequently becomes involved in patent enforcement litigation obligates the inventor to appear in the United States for a deposition in connection with the patent litigation.”

Here, the language of the assignment agreement provided: ” [Sheen] hereby agrees to execute any documents that legally may be required in connection with the filing, prosecution and maintenance of said application or any other patent application(s) in the United States for said invention . . . . [Sheen] also agrees, without further consideration and at [ITRI’s] expense, to identify and communicate to [ITRI] at [ITRI’s] request documents and information concerning the invention that are within [Sheen’s] possession or control, and to provide further assurances and testimony on behalf of [ITRI] that lawfully may be required of [Sheen] in respect of [sic] the prosecution, maintenance and defense of any patent application or patent encompassed within the terms of this instrument.”
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During jury selection in this patent infringement action, Marvell Technology Group, LTD (“Marvell”) filed an emergency motion to strike a portion of Carnegie Mellon’s (‘CMU”) damages. In the case, CMU asserted that Marvell infringed two of its patents directed to sequence detection in high density magnetic recording devices, specifically to high density magnetic recording sequence detectors. During trial, CMU intends to prove that Marvell produces read channel chips that perform the patented method when used and ultimately sold through an extensive sales cycle. The sales cycle involves alleged infringement when Marvell’s chips are used in the United States to secure a design win when a customer decides to use Marvell’s design for chips the customer will purchase.

Marvell’s emergency motion addressed potential damages as to accused chips sold by Marvell outside of the United States. This issue previously arose in Marvell’s motion for partial summary judgment, which the district court denied. Marvell asserted that the district court should revisit its prior ruling given additional information and arguments at this stage of the case. CMU objected and asserted that Marvell’s motion was procedurally improper.
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The America Invents Act (the “AIA”) includes a new inter partes review (“IPR”) procedure that takes the place of the old inter partes reexamination. The new IPR procedure, called a “trial” once the petition for review is granted by the Patent Office, permits declarations, limited discovery, including depositions, and potentially live testimony before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at the hearing on the petition. This new litigation component is likely to drastically alter the strategy and potential outcomes from the old reexamination process.

Indeed, the litigation component of challenging the validity of a patent at the Patent Office is unlike anything in the old reexamination process. As a result of this shift from a patent prosecution-like proceeding to one incorporating adversarial elements of litigation, it will be important for companies contemplating filing IPRs to review the IPR process and the petitions themselves, including expert declarations, with a litigation mind set and with the help of seasoned litigators in combination with savvy patent prosecutors.

This is the first in a series of articles that focus on the new IPR process and the key provisions that bring litigation to the PTO.
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Complainant FlashPoint Technology, Inc. (“FlashPoint”) initiated an ITC proceeding against HTC Corporation, among others. FlashPoint filed a motion for a protective order seeking to limit the discovery of electronically stored information. FlashPoint proposed a limit of 15 custodians collectively for respondents to select, which included an option to negotiate for additional custodians if there was a good faith basis to add additional custodians from FlashPoint.

HTC asserted that a limit on email discovery would severely prejudice its ability to prove its on sale bar and implied license defenses. As explained by the Administrative Law Judge, “HTC is pursuing an on-sale bar because it believes there is a relationship between the asserted patents and FlashPoint’s invalidated U.S. Patent No. 6,163,816 (“the ‘816 patent”). The ‘816 patent was invalidated by an on-sale bar in ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-726 (“the 726 Investigation”). (Opp. At 5.) HTC further explains, “Flash Point is again claiming that HTC infringes patents arising from the FlashPoint project work conducted in the 1990s, and HTC is again raising the on-sale bar…” (Opp. At 6.) Thus it appears HTC’s motivation for the on-sale bar is its suspicion that because the asserted patents and the invalidated ‘816 patent were related to the same project work, the asserted patents might also be subject to the on-sale bar. HTC also briefly explains the motivation for its implied license defense, namely that HTC is a customer of a licensee of FlashPoint’s technology.”
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After the recent global settlement between Apple and HTC, the terms of which Apple and HTC agreed to keep confidential, Samsung requested production of the agreement from Apple. Samsung moved to compel the production of the agreement.

Samsung sought discovery of the agreement with HTC to support its opposition to Apple’s motion for a permanent injunction. Samsung asserted that the settlement agreement undermined Apple’s assertion that an injunction is a more appropriate remedy than monetary damages. Apple responded by stating that it was willing to provide the settlement agreement but asserted that HTC objected to the production of the agreement because the agreement’s financial terms had competitive value.
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Brandywine Communications Technologies, LLC (“Brandywine”) filed a patent infringement action against Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”). During the initial case management conference, the parties were given additional time to supplement their initial disclosures and were told to do so “on pain of preclusion.” Cisco contended that the damage disclosures remained inadequate and the district court was called on to address the issue of to what extent Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a) requires a plaintiff in a patent cases to disclose and specify damages at the outset of the litigation even though some of the necessary information is only in the hands of the accused infringer.

Rule 26(a)(1)(A)(iii) provides: “A party must, without awaiting a discovery request, provide to the other parties a computation of each category of damages claimed by the disclosing party — who must also make available for inspection and copying as under Rule 34 the documents or other evidentiary material, unless privileged or protected from disclosure, on which each computation is based, including materials bearing on the nature and extent of injuries suffered.”
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In December 2010, plaintiff Multimedia Patent Trust (“MPT”) filed a complaint for patent infringement against several defendants, including Apple, LG and Canon. The complaint accused the defendants of infringing several patents pertaining to video compression technology. The district court subsequently granted Canon’s motion for summary judgment based on exhaustion. Prior to trial, the remaining defendants filed a motion to exclude MPT’s infringement expert’s analysis under the doctrine of equivalents.

After reviewing the standard for a Daubert motion to exclude expert testimony, the district court turned to the specific standard for infringement of means-plus-function claims. “A patent infringement analysis proceeds in two steps. Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 976 (Fed. Cir. 1995), aff’d 517 U.S. 370. In the first step, the court construes the asserted claims as a matter of law. See id. In the second step, the factfinder compares the claimed invention to the accused device. Id.; see also Verizon Servs. Corp. v. Cox Fibernet Va., Inc., 602 F.3d 1325, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (“A determination of infringement is a question of fact . . . .”). “To prove literal infringement, the patentee must show that the accused device contains every limitation in the asserted claims. If even one limitation is missing or not met as claimed, there is no literal infringement.” Riles v. Shell Exploration & Prod. Co., 298 F.3d 1302, 1308 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (quoting Mas-Hamilton Group v. LaGard, Inc., 156 F.3d 1206, 1211 (Fed. Cir. 1998)).”
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