Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 created the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, 35 U.S.C. 6(c), which conducts administrative review proceedings that enable a “person” to challenge the validity of a patent post-issuance: “inter partes review,” “post-grant review,” and “covered-business-method review” (CBM review). The Board either confirms or cancels the patent claims. Any dissatisfied party may then seek judicial review in the Federal Circuit. A patent can also be reexamined either in federal court during a defense to an infringement suit or in an ex parte reexamination by the Patent Office.USPS introduced an enhanced service to process undeliverable mail, which Return Mail asserted infringed its patent. USPS petitioned for ex parte reexamination. The Patent Office confirmed the patent’s validity. Return Mail then sued, seeking compensation for the unauthorized use of its invention. USPS petitioned for CBM review. The Patent Board concluded that the subject matter of Return Mail’s claims was ineligible to be patented. The Federal Circuit affirmed.The Supreme Court reversed. The government is not a “person” capable of instituting AIA review proceedings. Absent an express definition of “person” in the patent statutes, the Court applied a longstanding interpretive presumption that "person" does not include the sovereign, citing common usage, and the Dictionary Act. There are many references to “person[s]” in the Patent Act and the AIA: Sometimes “person” plainly includes or excludes the government, but sometimes it might be read either way. The mere existence of some government-inclusive references and the government's ability to obtain a patent do not overcome the presumption that the government is not a “person” eligible to petition for AIA review. Congress may have had good reason to authorize the government to initiate a hands-off ex parte reexamination but not to become a party to the AIA’s full-blown adversarial proceeding. View "Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and award of attorney's fees to Sanctuary Clothing in an action brought by Fiesta, alleging that Sanctuary clothing copied its fabric design. The panel held that the district court did not err in finding that the design had been published prior to registration and therefore Fiesta's registration application contained an inaccuracy. Furthermore, Fiesta included inaccurate information on its application with knowledge that it was inaccurate. Therefore, the inaccuracy in the registration rendered it invalid as to the design under section 411(b)(1)(B) of the Copyright Act. The panel also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorney's fees to Sanctuary Clothing. View "Gold Value International Textile, Inc. v. Sanctuary Clothing, LLC" on Justia Law

The asserted patents were originally assigned to AMD, which later purported to transfer “all right, title and interest” in the patents to Lone Star, with several limitations. For example, Lone Star agreed to only assert the covered patents against “Unlicensed Third Party Entit[ies]” specifically listed in the agreement. New entities can only be added if both parties agree to add them. If Lone Star sues an unlisted entity, AMD has the right, without Lone Star’s approval, to sublicense the covered patents to the unlisted target. AMD can prevent Lone Star from assigning the patents or allowing them to enter the public domain. AMD and its customers can continue to practice the patents; AMD shares in any revenue Lone Star generates from the patents through “monetization efforts." Lone Star sued parties listed as Unlicensed Third Party Entities in the agreement, asserting infringement and alleging that AMD transferred “all right, title, and interest” in the asserted patents to Lone Star. The district court concluded that Lone Star does not own the patents and could not assert them. The Federal Circuit vacated the dismissal, while agreeing that Lone Star cannot assert the patents on its own. The court should not have dismissed the case without considering whether AMD should have been joined (Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. View "Lone Star Silicon Innovations, LLC v. Nanya Technology Corp." on Justia Law

Pabst’s patent, entitled “Analog Data Generating and Processing Device Having a Multi-Use Automatic Processor,” issued in 2015 and claims priority to a 1999 application through continuations of applications that issued as Pabst’s 399 and 449 patents. That same specification also gave rise to Papst’s 144 and 746 patents. The specification describes an interface device for communication between a data device (on one side of the interface) and a host computer (on the other). The interface device achieves high data transfer rates, without the need for a user-installed driver specific to the interface device, by using fast drivers that are already standard on the host computer for data transfer, such as a hard-drive driver. The interface device signals to the host device that the interface device is an input/output device for which the host already has such a driver. On inter partes review, Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that claims 1– 38 and 43–45 are unpatentable for obviousness based on a combination of the Aytac patent, a publication setting forth standards for the Small Computer System Interface-2, and “admitted prior art.” The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that Pabst’s arguments are barred by issue preclusion and fail on the merits. View "Pabst Licensing GMBH & Co. KG v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc." on Justia Law

Guitar Center, which sells musical instruments, created a new brand of woodwind and brass instruments produced by Eastman, “Ventus.” Barrington owns the trademark “Vento,” which is used in relation to instruments it sells. Barrington began using its mark in commerce in 2009 and achieved gross sales just under $700,000. Barrington filed for registration of its “Vento” mark in January 2010. In March 2011, Guitar Center began selling instruments using the “Ventus” mark, with gross sales totaling about $5 million. Barrington filed suit against Eastman, Music & Arts, Guitar Center, and Woodwind. A jury found that only Guitar Center's sales infringed and awarded Barrington the total amount of Guitar Center sales—$3,228. Barrington later discovered that Music & Arts and Woodwind were divisions of Guitar Center. Barrington moved the court to amend the damages award to $4,947,200, the total sales for the “Ventus” mark by all of the Guitar Center owned stores. The district court denied the Rule 59(e) motion. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Barrington gave no reason to conclude that the jury’s verdict would be different if it were aware Music & Arts and Woodwind were merely divisions of Guitar Center; it found Music & Arts and Woodwind did not infringe on the “Ventus” mark and there was no basis to award Barrington their “Ventus” related sales. View "Barrington Music Products, Inc v. Music & Arts Center" on Justia Law

This consolidated appeal stemmed from the trusts' motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction enjoining the use of Phyllis Schafly's intellectual property. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of preliminary injunctive relief under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1) and held that the trusts would not be entitled to the traditional presumption of irreparable harm in trademark cases because they did not promptly seek preliminary injunctive relief concerning the trademark infringement, regardless of whether the presumption survived recent Supreme Court decisions emphasizing the movant's burden to show that irreparable injury was likely in the absence of an injunction. The court dismissed the appeal of the order staying litigation for lack of appellate jurisdiction, because the order was temporary and did not effectively end the litigation. View "Phyllis Schlafly Revocable Trust v. Cori" on Justia Law

Sony’s patent is directed to “an information recording medium” (e.g., a compact disk, video disk, or magneto-optical disk) that can store audio data having multiple channels and “a reproducing device” that can select which channel to play based on a default code or value stored in nonvolatile memory. The specification states that the reproducing device is provided with “storing means” for storing the audio information (e.g., audio data recorded in different languages), “reading means” for reading codes associated with the audio information (e.g., 0, 1, 2, and 3 for English, French, German, and Japanese, respectively), and “reproducing means” for reproducing the audio information based on the default code or value. The specification gives the example of a device manufactured to record and store audio data (e.g., of a movie) in multiple different languages for various countries. On inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found two claims unpatentable as obvious. The Federal Circuit vacated. The Board erred in construing the “reproducing means” limitation, which is more appropriately construed as computer-implemented, and that the corresponding structure is a synthesizer and controller that performs the algorithm disclosed in the specification. View "Sony Corp. v. Iancu" on Justia Law

Quest’s patent relates to a system for displaying inspection data collected from certain commercial furnaces (e.g., a furnace used in a refinery). The patent attempts to improve upon how prior art systems displayed collected inspection data, but does not purport to improve upon how inspection data is collected or the type of data collected; the system comprises “a storage device for storing the inspection data collected by an inspection tool flushed through the furnace” and a computer programmed to generate a plurality of data markers in relation to that data, partition the data at the data markers, and generate a display of the partitioned inspection data, “wherein the display is a two-dimensional or three-dimensional representation of one or more of the tube segments of the furnace.” On summary judgment, the district court held that five claims of the patent were invalid under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) because the claimed invention was offered for sale more than one year before the filing of the patent application. The Federal Circuit held that the district court properly construed the claims and that three claims are invalid based on that construction but that the court erred in disregarding declarations of the inventors under the sham affidavit doctrine, and that Quest raised a genuine issue of material fact as to the validity of two claims. View "Quest Integrity USA, LLC v. Cokebusters USA Inc." on Justia Law

PlayNation filed suit against Velez for trademark infringement over the use of the Gorilla Gym mark and the district court entered judgment for PlayNation. The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not clearly err in holding that Velez infringed on PlayNation's trademark, and in cancelling Velex's trademark registration on that basis. However, the district court abused its discretion in holding that PlayNation was entitled to an accounting of Velex's profits due to willful infringement based solely on Velex's continued lawful use of its mark after Velex was served with the complaint. Therefore, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded in part. View "PlayNation Play Systems, Inc. v. Velex Corp." on Justia Law

Tempnology licensed Mission to use Tempnology’s trademarks in connection with the distribution of clothing. Tempnology filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sought to reject its agreement with Mission as an “executory contract” under 11 U.S.C. 365, which provides that rejection “constitutes a breach of such contract.” The Bankruptcy Court approved Tempnology’s rejection, holding that the rejection terminated Mission’s rights to use Tempnology’s trademarks. The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel reversed, holding that rejection does not terminate rights that would survive a breach of contract outside bankruptcy. The First Circuit reinstated the Bankruptcy Court’s decision.The Supreme Court reversed, first holding that the case is not moot. Mission presented a plausible claim for damages, sufficient to preserve a live controversy. A debtor’s rejection of an executory contract under Bankruptcy Code Section 365 has the same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy and cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted. A licensor’s breach cannot revoke continuing rights given under a contract (assuming no special contract term or state law) outside of bankruptcy; the same result follows from rejection in bankruptcy. Section 365 reflects the general bankruptcy rule that the estate cannot possess anything more than the debtor did outside bankruptcy. The distinctive features of trademarks do not mandate a different result. In delineating the burdens a debtor may and may not escape, Section 365’s edict that rejection is breach expresses a more complex set of aims than facilitating reorganization. View "Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC" on Justia Law