Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

A Colorado-based technology company specializing in wireless communications collaborated with a Massachusetts micro-display company to develop a headset, formalizing their respective rights in a contract. The contract established joint intellectual property ownership for the project and designated the Massachusetts company to select counsel and prosecute patents. The selected law firm worked with both companies during patent prosecution, opening billing files and receiving powers of attorney from the Colorado company’s employees. Over time, disputes arose regarding patent applications, including amendments that allegedly benefited the Massachusetts company at the expense of the Colorado company, abandonment of applications, and filing disclaimers—often without informing the Colorado company.After the business relationship ended in 2009, the Colorado company only discovered alleged misconduct by the law firm years later when investigating its patent portfolio in response to a potential acquisition. Subsequent litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado led to the law firm’s disqualification due to a found attorney-client relationship, and discovery revealed possible concealment and conflicts of interest.The Colorado company then sued the law firm and individual attorneys in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging legal malpractice and related claims. The district court granted summary judgment for the law firm, concluding all claims were untimely under the statute of limitations, not saved by equitable tolling, and that no attorney-client relationship existed.Upon review, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that whether the malpractice claims were timely is a factual question suitable for a jury, not summary judgment, and that an attorney-client relationship existed as a matter of law for the relevant period. The appellate court reversed the district court’s timeliness and relationship rulings on the legal malpractice claim, vacated determinations regarding other claims, and remanded for further proceedings. View "BlueRadios, Inc. v. Hamilton, Brook, Smith & Reynolds, P.C." on Justia Law

Range of Motion Products, LLC owns a design patent for a body massaging apparatus, which is embodied in its product, the Rolflex. Armaid Company Inc. manufactures the Armaid2, an accused product in this suit, as well as an earlier version, the Armaid1, which was covered by a utility patent. RoM alleged that the Armaid2 infringed its design patent. Previously, RoM had filed a similar suit against Armaid in the same court, but that case was dismissed without prejudice following the denial of a preliminary injunction.In the subsequent action, the United States District Court for the District of Maine construed the design patent, carefully distinguishing between functional and ornamental aspects of the claimed design. The court found that many features, notably the shape of the arms and the base, were primarily functional, narrowing the scope of the claimed design. Upon reviewing the evidence, the district court concluded that no reasonable jury could find the design of the Armaid2 substantially similar to the patented design, and granted summary judgment of non-infringement in favor of Armaid.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the district court’s claim construction de novo and its grant of summary judgment under the First Circuit’s de novo standard. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment, holding that the district court did not err in identifying the functional versus ornamental aspects of the claimed design, and finding that the designs were plainly dissimilar when considering only the ornamental features. The court further held that, even when comparing the accused and claimed designs alongside prior art, no reasonable jury could find substantial similarity. The judgment of non-infringement was affirmed. View "RANGE OF MOTION PRODUCTS, LLC v. ARMAID COMPANY INC. " on Justia Law

The dispute centered on technology for streaming media over networks, specifically a method described in a now-expired patent for reducing latency and improving stream quality using intermediate “helper servers” to cache and coordinate content distribution. The patent’s method claim at issue involved several steps, including receiving a request for a streaming media object from a client at a helper server, allocating a buffer at the helper server to cache part of the requested object, downloading that portion to the client while concurrently retrieving the remaining portion, and adjusting the transfer rate. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant’s system infringed this method claim by directing third-party edge servers to perform these steps.The United States District Court for the Central District of California previously granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of the defendant. The district court found that the accused system did not perform the required steps in the order set out in the claim and that it did not use the kind of “specialized buffer” the patent required. On a prior appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed some claim constructions, vacated the summary judgment, and remanded for further construction of the term “buffer.” On remand, the district court construed “buffer” as “short term storage associated with said requested SM object,” determined that claim 16 required both a specialized buffer and a specific order of steps, and again granted summary judgment for noninfringement.On the present appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the district court erred in limiting the claim to a specialized buffer, but correctly construed the claim to require the first two steps to be performed in sequence. Because the accused system did not perform the steps in this required order, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment of noninfringement. View "Sound View Innovations, LLC v. Hulu, LLC" on Justia Law

The case concerns Frederick Allen, a videographer, and his company, Nautilus Productions, who documented the excavation of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the sunken pirate ship of Blackbeard, off the North Carolina coast. Allen registered copyrights for many years of video footage he recorded during the recovery project. The State of North Carolina and its Department of Natural and Cultural Resources entered into agreements related to the salvage operation. Allen alleged that state officials infringed his copyrights by using his footage online and in state publications without permission, and that the state passed a law, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 121-25(b), which Allen argued authorized this infringement.The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina initially dismissed some claims but allowed Allen’s claims for declaratory judgment and copyright infringement to proceed, finding Congress had validly abrogated state sovereign immunity under the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA). On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that the CRCA did not validly abrogate state sovereign immunity, and the Supreme Court affirmed. Allen then voluntarily dismissed his remaining claims against the only non-governmental defendant, closing the case.Despite these rulings, the district court in 2021 allowed Allen to reopen the case, permitting him to amend his complaint based on a new constitutional theory stemming from United States v. Georgia, seeking as-applied, case-by-case abrogation of state sovereign immunity. In 2024, the district court denied sovereign immunity on this new claim, allowing it to proceed. The North Carolina defendants appealed.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion in reopening the litigation under Rule 54(b) rather than Rule 60(b), where no extraordinary circumstances justified such relief. The appellate court reversed the order reopening the case, vacated the subsequent 2024 ruling as moot, and remanded with instructions to close the litigation and dismiss all claims against the North Carolina defendants with prejudice. View "Allen v. Stein" on Justia Law

The plaintiff, owner of U.S. Patent No. 7,679,637, claimed infringement by the defendant, Google LLC, concerning a patent related to web conferencing systems. The patent describes systems that allow participants to view sessions in real time, with time-shifting capabilities so that sessions can also be viewed with delay or after completion, and at different playback rates while maintaining consistent audio quality. The asserted claims permit asynchronous review of multimedia presentations, such as going back to review one aspect while another continues live.The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington reviewed the complaint, in which the plaintiff alleged infringement of claims 2–5 and 7–9 of the patent. Google moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing the asserted claims were patent-ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The district court granted the motion to dismiss, finding the claims were directed to an abstract idea without an inventive concept that would make them patent-eligible. The court also denied the plaintiff leave to amend the complaint, citing futility.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the district court’s dismissal de novo, applying the Alice two-step test for patent eligibility. The appellate court affirmed that the claims were directed to the abstract idea of asynchronous review of presentations and did not disclose a specific technological improvement or inventive concept. The court found that conventional components and result-oriented language did not suffice for eligibility and agreed that amendment of the complaint would be futile. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the case. Costs were awarded to Google. View "US PATENT NO. 7,679,637 LLC v. GOOGLE LLC " on Justia Law

A dispute arose when a company alleged that its proprietary process for manufacturing polycarbonate, a valuable industrial material, was misappropriated by a group of former employees and several consulting and engineering firms. The process involved multiple stages and technological innovations developed over decades, and had been licensed to partners around the world. After one former employee, who had extensive knowledge of the process, began consulting internationally and sharing information—including plant designs marked confidential—questions arose about whether these actions led to the improper use of trade secrets in the development and marketing of similar technology to other manufacturers.The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas presided over a jury trial in which the jury found that four out of ten asserted trade secrets were misappropriated by the defendants, including the consulting companies and engineering firm. The jury awarded substantial damages to the plaintiff, including reasonable royalties and unjust enrichment amounts. However, the district court later granted the defendants’ motions for judgment as a matter of law, vacating the damages award on the grounds that the plaintiff had failed to properly apportion damages among the trade secrets found to be misappropriated, instead presenting an “all-or-nothing” damages model. The district court also granted summary judgment against the plaintiff's alternative claim for misappropriation of confidential information, finding it preempted by state trade secrets law, denied a new trial on damages, and entered a permanent injunction against the defendants.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's rulings in all respects. The Fifth Circuit held that, where multiple trade secrets are alleged and only some are found misappropriated, the plaintiff must provide a reasonable basis for the jury to apportion damages among the proven secrets. The court also affirmed the preemption of alternative confidential information claims and upheld the permanent injunction. View "Trinseo v. Harper" on Justia Law

A group of affiliated pest-control companies discovered that employees of a competing firm, Aptive Environmental, LLC, had bribed members of their organization to obtain confidential sales data stored in a password-protected system. The misappropriated data was allegedly used by Aptive to recruit sales representatives for the competitive summer sales season, an activity crucial to both businesses’ revenue. Upon learning of these actions, the companies sued Aptive and several individual employees, asserting claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), and Utah’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA).The United States District Court for the District of Utah initially dismissed the CFAA claim, concluding that the plaintiffs had not sufficiently pleaded the statutory loss requirement, specifically a loss from technological harm. The court denied motions to compel broad discovery into damages, limiting disclosures but allowing the possibility of further tailored discovery. On summary judgment, the district court found that the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence of causation linking Aptive’s alleged misappropriation to unjust enrichment, granting judgment for Aptive on the RICO, DTSA, and UTSA claims.The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reviewed these decisions. It held that the district court erred in dismissing the CFAA claim, clarifying that the statute does not require loss from technological harm and that investigative costs can qualify as statutory losses. The appellate court affirmed the district court’s denial of broad discovery, finding no abuse of discretion. Regarding summary judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the outcome for the RICO claim due to lack of causation evidence but reversed in part for the DTSA and UTSA claims, holding that reasonable royalties and injunctive relief do not require the same proof of causation as unjust enrichment. The CFAA, DTSA, and UTSA claims were remanded for further proceedings. View "Moxie Pest Control (Utah) v. Nielsen" on Justia Law

A physician brought suit against several related companies, alleging that they induced surgeons to infringe claims of three patents covering surgical techniques and tools for treating spinal deformities. These patents involve methods and devices for correcting misaligned vertebrae, including the use of “handle means” and “cross-linking members” in en bloc derotation procedures. The defendant companies manufacture derotation devices that, according to the plaintiff, infringe the asserted patents when used in certain configurations. The dispute centered on whether the accused devices contained the claimed “handle means” and whether surgeons actually used the devices in infringing ways.In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the parties disputed the meaning of “handle means,” and the court adopted the plaintiff’s proposed construction. During the trial, the plaintiff presented testimony from two experts: one on infringement and another who conducted a survey on surgical practices. The defendants moved to exclude both experts under Daubert, challenging the reliability and relevance of their methods and opinions. Initially, the district court denied these motions, finding that the experts’ application of the court’s claim construction and survey methodology affected the weight of their testimony, not its admissibility.However, following the experts’ testimony at trial, the district court reversed its earlier decision, excluded substantial portions of both experts’ testimony as unreliable and contradictory to the court’s claim construction, and then granted judgment as a matter of law to the defendants due to the lack of admissible evidence supporting infringement.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion in excluding the expert testimony and erred in granting judgment as a matter of law. The appellate court reversed the district court’s rulings, holding that the excluded testimony did not contradict the court’s claim construction and that any methodological concerns went to evidentiary weight, not admissibility. The case was remanded for a new trial in which both experts may testify. View "BARRY v. DEPUY SYNTHES COMPANIES " on Justia Law

The plaintiffs in this case are the sons of Roberto Clemente, a renowned Puerto Rican baseball player, and two corporations they control. The dispute centers on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s use of Clemente’s name and image on commemorative license plates and vehicle registration tags. Proceeds from these items were designated to fund a new “Roberto Clemente Sports District,” a public project that would replace an earlier initiative, Ciudad Deportiva, originally founded by Clemente. The plaintiffs allege that they hold trademark rights in Clemente’s name and that the Commonwealth’s actions were unauthorized and caused public confusion, with many mistakenly believing the Clemente family benefited financially from the program.The plaintiffs brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico against the Commonwealth, several high-ranking officials, and the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority. Their claims included trademark infringement, false association, false advertising, and trademark dilution under the Lanham Act, as well as a takings claim under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Commonwealth and the Authority moved to dismiss, arguing sovereign and qualified immunity and failure to state a claim. The district court granted both motions, dismissing all federal claims on immunity and merits grounds, and declined to exercise jurisdiction over non-federal claims.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reviewed the dismissal de novo. The court affirmed the dismissal of all claims against the Authority and all claims against the Commonwealth and its officials in their official capacities. It also affirmed dismissal of the false advertising and takings claims. However, the court vacated the dismissal of the Lanham Act claims for trademark infringement, false endorsement, and dilution against the Commonwealth officials in their personal capacities, holding those claims were plausibly alleged and not barred by qualified immunity at this stage, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Clemente Properties, Inc. v. Pierluisi-Urrutia" on Justia Law

Illinois Tamale Company, a Chicago-based food manufacturer, brought a trademark infringement suit against LC Trademarks and Little Caesar Enterprises, alleging that Little Caesars’ launch and advertising of its “Crazy Puffs” product infringed Iltaco’s registered trademarks for “Pizza Puff” and “Puff.” Iltaco has sold its “Pizza Puff” product for decades and registered the “Pizza Puff” trademark in 2009 and the “Puff” mark in 2022. Little Caesars, a national pizza chain, began selling “Crazy Puffs” in 2024, marketing them with its established “Crazy” branding and trade dress, and included the phrase “4 Hand-Held Pizza Puffs” in small print as part of its advertising.After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Iltaco, Little Caesars disputed the claims and continued its use of the contested names. Iltaco filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, asserting Lanham Act and related state law claims and moved for a preliminary injunction to stop Little Caesars from using “Crazy Puffs,” “Pizza Puff,” or “Puff.” The district court denied the injunction for “Crazy Puffs” and “Puff,” finding no sufficient likelihood of success on those claims, but granted the injunction for “Pizza Puff,” ruling that Iltaco was likely to prove infringement with respect to that mark.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reviewed the district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error. The Seventh Circuit held that the district court erred in granting the injunction for “Pizza Puff,” finding that Iltaco failed to show a likelihood of success in proving the mark was protectable and in rebutting Little Caesars’ fair use defense. The court affirmed the district court’s decision denying the injunction as to “Crazy Puffs” and “Puff.” Thus, the judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Illinois Tamale Company, Inc. v. LC Trademarks, Inc." on Justia Law