Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, California grape growers who purchased grapevines covered by the USDA's patents, brought this action to challenge the validity and enforceability of the USDA's patents on three varieties of grapes, as well as the conduct of the California Table Grape Commission (Commission) and the USDA in licensing and enforcing the patents. The court held that the district court correctly held that the USDA was a necessary party to plaintiffs' declaratory judgement claims based on the Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. 1 et seq. The court also held that the waiver of sovereign immunity in section 702 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., was broad enough to allow plaintiffs to pursue equitable relief against the USDA on its patent law claims. The court further held that plaintiffs' claims were sufficient to overcome any presumption of regularity that could apply to a certain USDA employee who was one of the co-inventors of each of the three varieties of grapes. The court finally held that because plaintiffs failed to point to anything other than the issuance of a patent for the Sweet Scarlet grapes that would provide a plausible basis for finding that Sweet Scarlet grapes form a relevant antitrust market, the court upheld the district court's decision dismissing plaintiffs' antitrust claim. View "Delano Farms Co., et al. v. The California Table Grape Comm., et al." on Justia Law

The district court dismissed plaintiff's suit (35 U.S.C. 291) alleging interference with patent claims relating to truncated forms of an essential blood-clotting protein. The Federal Circuit affirmed, after first holding that the expiration of one of the patents following the district court’s final decision did not strip it of jurisdiction over the appeal. The district court properly determined that there was no interference in fact. View "Genetics Inst., LLC v.Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs asserted infringement of claims 1 and 3 of the patent, directed to a system and a method for inspecting integrated circuits printed on substrates such as wafers. The jury found that defendant's device infringed both claims, but that the infringement was not willful, and awarded about $6.8 million in lost profits. Because the jury found that plaintiff's NSX-80 wafer inspection machine was not prior art, the court held that there was no need for a separate trial on defendant's inequitable conduct claim, based on plaintiff's nondisclosure of the NSC-80 to the patent office. The Federal Circuit affirmed dismissal of the inequitable conduct claim, but reversed and remanded the determination of infringement and award of damages and injunction. The court improperly construed the claim in defining a wafer as any portion of a wafer having two or more dies. A wafer, as recited in the claims at issue, refers to a thin, discrete slice of semiconductor material with circuitry thereon that is ready for electrical testing having one or more dies. A plurality of wafers means more than one physically distinct wafer. View "August Tech. Corp. v. Camtek, Ltd." on Justia Law

Plaintiff's patent recites a method for detecting fraud in a credit card transaction over the Internet; the specification explains that prior systems, which generally rely on billing addresses and personal identification information, work well for face-to-face transactions and transactions where the merchant ships a package. For online sales where the product is downloadable, address and identity information do not verify that the purchaser is actually the credit card owner. The patent purports to solve this problem by determining whether an Internet address relating to a transaction is consistent with other Internet addresses that have been used with the same credit card. The district court granted summary judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. 101 for failure to recite patent-eligible subject matter. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the disputed claims attempt to capture unpatentable abstract ideas. One could mentally perform the fraud detection method that underlies the patent, as the method consists of only the general approach of obtaining information about credit card transactions utilizing an Internet address and then using that information in some undefined manner to determine if the credit card transaction is valid. View "Cybersource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc." on Justia Law

The owner of patents relating to methods and systems for charging a fee for sending unsolicited and unwanted e-mail (spam) and claimed infringement. The district court construed the claim as containing a drafting error and granted summary judgment of invalidity, holding that the claim indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. The claim is not indefinite, but has an obvious and correctable error, construction of which is not subject to reasonable debate by those skilled in the art. The district court had authority to correct the supposed error. The claim reads: "the computer being programmed to detect analyze the electronic mail communication sent by the sending party to determine whether or not the sending party is an authorized sending party or an unauthorized sending party." The addition of the word "and" between "detect" and "analyze" corrects an obvious error. View "CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc." on Justia Law

The company filed suit against numerous automobile manufacturers for infringement of three patents relating to tire pressure monitoring systems. The patent applications were filed in the 1990s and, in 2007, the inventors signed documents purporting to assign the patents to the company. The district court entered summary judgment of non-infringement of one claim and dismissed the others for lack of standing, based on a prior assignment. The court concluded that the claims at issue were not subject to an exclusion under an earlier assignment by the inventors. The Federal Circuit affirmed in part, holding that the company lacked standing with respect to all of the patents. View "MHL Tek, LLC v. Nissan Motor Co." on Justia Law

The rejected patent claim is one of several that describe a system for sending information (electronic mail) from an originating processor (personal computer) to a destination processor (mobile computer) using an intermediary (radio frequency receiver). Prior art systems required connection to a public switched phone line and were limited by difficulty in locating a phone jack. The Board of Patent Appeals affirmed the rejection, construing the term "destination processor," to mean the "particular end node device to which the intended user recipient of electronic mail has immediate and direct physical access when accessing and viewing electronic mail;" determining that the applicant was not entitled to claim priority; and finding that the claim was anticipated by prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Board properly relied on the written description in construing "destination processor." Nothing in 35 U.S.C. 301 prohibits an examiner from determining, on re-examination, whether a priority date was properly claimed during the original examination; such a determination was proper in this case because the examiner did not consider priority during the original prosecution. View "In re NTP, Inc." on Justia Law

The seven rejected patent claims describe a system for sending information (such as electronic mail) from an originating processor (i.e., a personal computer) to a destination processor (i.e., a mobile computer) using an intermediary (a radio frequency receiver). Prior art systems required connection to a public switched phone line and were limited by difficulty in locating a phone jack. The inventors set out to solve this problem by introducing a radio frequency network. The Board of Patent Appeals affirmed. The Federal Circuit vacated in part, reversed in part and remanded. The Board’s construction of the term "electronic mail [message]" was unreasonably broad, but the Board correctly found that the applicant failed to "swear behind" certain references (37 C.F.R. 1.131) and corroborate its claim that the system was reduced to practice prior to the "critical date" on which it appeared in print. View "In re NTP, Inc." on Justia Law

The district court held that medical organizations, researchers, genetic counselors, and patients had standing under the Declaratory Judgment Act to challenge patent claims to "isolated" DNA molecules and granted summary judgment that all of the challenged claims were drawn to non-patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. The Federal Circuit affirmed with respect to standing and reversed, in part, on the merits. Section 101 does not prohibit patent of molecules that do not exist in nature. A method claim to screening potential cancer therapeutics via changes in cell growth rates is patentable; it is not directed to a patent-ineligible scientific principle. The district court correctly determined that method claims directed to "comparing" or "analyzing" DNA sequences are patent ineligible; the claims include no transformative steps and cover only patent-ineligible abstract, mental steps. View "Ass'n for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent & Trademark Office" on Justia Law

The district court construed the terms "document," "file,"extract," and "template" in patents relating to document processing systems, entered a finding of non-infringement, and awarded $489,150.48 in attorney fees and costs and $141,984.70 in sanctions for violation of Rule 11. The Federal Circuit affirmed.The district court properly made an "exceptional case" finding, based on plaintiff's litigation misconduct and baseless infringement action, and awarded attorney fees and sanctions. View "Eon-Net LP v. Flagstar Bancorp" on Justia Law