When a patent application is allowed, the claims may not precisely cover everything that the applicant wants to protect. Rather than add new claims after a notice of allowance and prolong prosecution, applicants will commonly file one or more continuation applications to pursue different claims. The continuation has substantially the same specification and drawings as … Continue Reading
As noted in Part I of this series, patent litigation can be a mechanism for parties to spar and evaluate patent rights, as well as each other, prior to making the business agreements that settle such disputes. Once a patent is asserted to be infringed with the filing of a lawsuit, the dispute can become … Continue Reading
The number of patents issuing each year has increased dramatically since the Patent Act of 1952 codified US patent law — from fewer than 50,000 patents issued per year to around 350,000 patents issued per year for the last decade. Yet over the last decade, the number of patent litigations filed has fallen to fewer … Continue Reading
A number of district courts, as well as the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, have weighed in on whether and to what extent a patent challenger in an inter partes review (IPR) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may be estopped from making prior art based challenges in a district court litigation. … Continue Reading
In a patent infringement lawsuit, a plaintiff often seeks to recover lost profits damages—the profits that the patent owner would have made but for the competitor’s alleged infringement—instead of a lower reasonable royalty. A plaintiff is not automatically entitled to such damages, though, even upon a finding of infringement. Rather, the patent owner must prove … Continue Reading
The Federal Circuit recently affirmed the International Trade Commission’s (“ITC” or “Commission”) Opinion in Certain Digital Video Receivers and Hardware and Software Components Thereof,[1] holding that the ITC’s authority to exclude products from the United States is not limited to “articles that infringe” at the time of importation, but can include articles that infringe after … Continue Reading
In its November 13, 2019 decision in Columbia Sportswear v. Seirus, the Federal Circuit addressed the issue of whether the presence of a logo in the accused design should be considered when assessing infringement of a design patent and found that the district court erred in granting summary judgement without considering the impact of a … Continue Reading
In Myco Industries, Inc. v. BlephEx, LLC,[1] decided April 3, 2020, the Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s preliminary injunction which forbade a patent owner from accusing others of patent infringement. The Federal Circuit found a lack of a finding of bad faith in the patent owner’s accusations of infringement. The Federal Circuit also found … Continue Reading
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has decided to review in part an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ)’s finding of violation of Section 337 based on patent infringement in Certain Semiconductor Devices, Semiconductor Device Packages, and Products Containing Same, Inv. No. 337-TA-1010 (Sept. 29, 2017). While review of patent issues is not unusual, the Notice of … Continue Reading
Further to our colleagues’ prior blogs on this matter (here, here, and here), on March 27, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC to decide whether 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) (“patent venue statute”) is the sole and exclusive provision controlling venue in patent infringement actions or … Continue Reading
