Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

Danisco and Novozymes compete as suppliers of Rapid Starch Liquefaction products, genetically modified industrial enzymes that convert plant-based material into ethanol. They have patents that claim α-amylase enzymes, genetically engineered through substitution of amino acids in the peptide sequence to improve liquefaction performance. Novozymes has sued Danisco several times. Once Novozymes amended a pending patent application to claim one of Danisco’s new products, and sued Danisco the same day that the patent issued. Danisco owns the 240 patent, issued 2011 and claiming priority from a 2008 provisional application, claiming a variation for increased viscosity reduction in a starch liquefaction assay; it is the active ingredient in Danisco’s RSL products. After the PTO issued a Notice of Allowance, Novozymes amended a pending application to claim the enzyme, and contested entitlement to priority, arguing that its amended claim covered the same invention as the 240 patent. After Danisco’s 240 patent issued, Novozymes requested continued examination and made comments about its refusal to “acquiesce.” Upon issuance of Novozymes’s 573 patent, Danisco sought declaratory judgments that its products did not infringe and that the 573 patent was invalid, or that its 240 patent had priority under 35 U.S.C. 291. The district dismissed, acknowledging that Novozymes’s 573 patent presented a substantial risk to Danisco, but that Danisco’s action was filed before Novozymes could take action to enforce its rights. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the totality of the circumstances established a justiciable controversy. View "Danisco U.S. Inc. v. Novozymes A/S, Inc." on Justia Law

Ancora’s patent, entitled “Method of Restricting Software Operation within a License Limitation,” describes a method of preventing unauthorized software use by checking whether a program is operating within its license and taking remedial action if it is not. Methods for checking license coverage of software were known at the time of application, but some were vulnerable to hacking, while others were expensive and inconvenient to distribute. The specification claims to overcome those problems by using memory space associated with the computer’s basic input/output system (BIOS), rather than other space, to store encrypted license information for the verification process. While the contents of BIOS space may be modified, the level of expertise needed to do so is unusually high, and the risk of accidentally rendering the computer inoperable is too high for the ordinary hacker. The method eliminates the expense and inconvenience of using additional hardware. Ancora sued, alleging that products running Apple’s iOS operating system infringed the patent. Ancora stipulated to non-infringement under the district court’s construction of the claim term “program” and appealed that construction. Apple cross-appealed. The Federal Circuit reverses the construction of “program” as limited to application programs, affirmed a conclusion that the terms “volatile memory” and “non-volatile memory” are not indefinite, and remanded.View "Ancora Tech., Inc. v. Apple, Inc." on Justia Law

Airs International, a purported owner of an ANGEL DREAMS trademark, filed suit against Victoria's Secret alleging breach of contract claims and requesting cancellation of Victoria's Secret's registered DREAM ANGELS trademark. On appeal, Airs International challenged the district court's dismissal of its claims. The court held that Section 37 of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1119, did not provide an independent basis for federal jurisdiction. Because Airs Aromatics had not appealed the dismissal of the only claims it brought that could support jurisdiction, the district court's judgment dismissing this action with prejudice must be affirmed. Airs Aromatics has not alleged sufficient facts to support a claim for trademark infringement where it failed to allege that the litigation was the kind of continuous, public usage of a trademark that served to identify the marked goods to the public as those of the mark's owner. Finally, leave to amend would be futile. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Airs Aromatics v. Victoria's Secret" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was cast in a minor role in an adventure film with the working title "Desert Warrior." The film never materialized and plaintiff's scene was used, instead, in an anti-Islamic film titled "Innocence of Muslims." The film was uploaded to YouTube.com and her brief performance was dubbed over so that she appeared to be asking, "Is your Mohammed a child molester?" An Egyptian cleric subsequently issued a fatwa, calling for the killing of everyone involved with the film. After Google refused to take it down from YouTube, plaintiff sought a restraining order seeking removal of the film, claiming that the posting of the video infringed the copyright in her performance. The district court treated the application as a motion for a preliminary injunction but denied the motion. The court concluded that plaintiff demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits where plaintiff had an independent copyright interest in her performance; the work for hire doctrine was inapplicable in this instance because plaintiff was not a traditional employee and the filmmaker was not in the regular business of making films; and although plaintiff granted the filmmaker an implied license to use plaintiff's performance, the filmmaker exceeded the bounds of the license when he lied to plaintiff in order to secure her participation and she agreed to perform in reliance on that lie. The court also concluded that plaintiff faced irreparable harm absent an injunction where plaintiff took legal action as soon as the film received worldwide attention and she began receiving death threats; the harm plaintiff complained of was real and immediate; and plaintiff demonstrated a causal connection because removing the film from YouTube would help disassociate her from the film's anti-Islamic message and such disassociation would keep her from suffering future threats and physical harm. Finally, the balance of the equities and the public interest favored plaintiff's position. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion for a preliminary injunction. The court reversed and remanded. View "Garcia v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

Elcommerce.com owns a patent directed to a system and method of monitoring a supply chain of components to coordinate and stabilize the supply of components from various producers. Elcommerce charged SAP with patent infringement. SAP counterclaimed that the patent was invalid, unenforceable, and not infringed. The district court construed claims and entered summary judgment that certain asserted system claims were invalid for indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. 112. The parties stipulated that the claim construction precluded finding that SAP infringes any of the asserted method claims. The Federal Circuit affirmed construction of the claim terms “independent supply chain sites,” “scanning for,” “detecting,” and “monitoring for changed supply-related data information,” and the resulting stipulation of non-infringement of the method claims. The court vacated the ruling of invalidity of the system claims as based on an incorrect evidentiary premise. SAP incorrectly informed the court that Federal Circuit precedent makes consideration of evidence of the knowledge and understanding of the relevant technology by persons of skill in the field of the invention unnecessary and declined to provide evidence of how such persons would view the description of “structure, materials, or acts” in the specification for performance of the several functions claimed. Invalidity must be proven by clear and convincing evidence . View "Elcommerce.com, Inc. v. SAP AG & SAP Am., Inc." on Justia Law

The Federal Circuit previously held that patent claim construction receives de novo determination on appeal. Such review is conducted on the administrative record and any additional information in the record of the district court, and is without deference to the ruling of the district court. The court had applied that standard to this case and, reversing the district court, held that the claim term “voltage source means” is a means-plus-function term requiring corresponding structure in the specification. The court held the claims invalid for indefiniteness. After granting rehearing, en banc, the Federal Circuit applied the principles of stare decisis, and confirmed the Cybor standard of de novo review. The court stated that after 15 years of experience with Cybor, it concluded that it should retain plenary review of claim construction, to provide national uniformity, consistency, and finality to the meaning and scope of patent claims. View "Lighting Ballast Control, LLC v. Philips Elec. N. Am. Corp." on Justia Law

Solvay’s 817 patent claims an improvement to a method of making a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC-245fa), which does not deplete the ozone layer as legislatively mandated to replace ozone-depleting alternatives. HFC-245fa is especially useful in preparing polymeric materials used for insulation in refrigeration and heat systems. The patent has a 1995 priority date. In 1994, Honeywell and RSCAC entered into a contract, under which RSCAC engineers, in Russia, studied commercial production of HFC-245fa. RSCAC sent Honeywell a report documenting a continuous process capable of producing high yields of HFC-245fa. Honeywell used the report to run the same process in the U.S., before the 817 patent’s priority date. Solvay sued Honeywell, alleging infringement. Honeywell argued that the Russian inventors made the invention in this country by sending instructions to Honeywell personnel who reduced the invention to practice in the U.S. The district court held that the RSCAC engineers should be treated as inventors who made the invention in the U.S. under 35 U.S.C. 102(g)(2), that RSCAC disclosed claim1 in a 1994 Russian patent application such that they did not abandon, suppress, or conceal it. The Federal Circuit affirmed judgment for Honeywell. It is not required that the inventor be the one to reduce the invention to practice if reduction to practice was done on his behalf in the U.S., so Honeywell’s invention qualified as prior art.View "Solvay, S.A. v. Honeywell Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to fifth-degree-felony theft of property valued at $500 or more but less than $5,000 for misappropriating intellectual property from his employer (Employer). As part of his sentence, the trial court ordered Defendant to pay restitution to Employer in the amount of $63,121, representing the costs of a company investigation and an accounting. The court of appeals affirmed the order of restitution. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) a trial court has discretion to base the amount of restitution in an appropriate case on the amount it orders on a recommendation of the victim, the offender, a presentence investigation report, and other information, but the amount ordered cannot be greater than the amount of economic loss suffered as a direct and proximate result of the commission of the offense; (2) a hearing on restitution is required only if the offender, victim, or survivor disputes the amount of restitution ordered; and (3) the trial court lacked authority in this case to order $63,121 in restitution. Remanded.View "State v. Lalain" on Justia Law

EnOcean owns a patent application that claims a self-powered switch, which can be used to turn on and off lights, appliances, and other devices without a battery or connection to an electrical outlet. The named inventors originally filed a patent application disclosing the switch in Germany in 2000; in 2001 they filed a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) international application with a similar disclosure. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences declared an interference in 2010 between EnOcean and Face, the real party of interest in a U.S. Patent that also claims a self-powered switch. The Board found the Face claims were unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 103 based on prior art. Face did not appeal. The Board then applied a presumption that EnOcean’s claims were unpatentable for the same reasons. EnOcean’s argument for rebutting the presumption required determination that EnOcean’s claims could benefit from the filing dates of its German and PCT applications, eliminating a reference from prior art. The Board accorded no benefit of priority to the claims and found all of EnOcean’s claims unpatentable under section 103. The Federal Circuit vacated in part, finding that the Board erred in treating certain EnOcean claims as means-plus-function claims and in finding that certain EnOcean claim limitations lack support in its priority German and PCT applications.View "EnOcean GmbH v. Face Int'l Corp." on Justia Law

Experience Hendrix filed suit against Pitsicalis alleging that Pitsicalis was infringing trademarks in violation of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1051-1127, and that the trademark infringement also amounted to an unfair or deceptive trade practice proscribed by Washington's Consumer Protection Act (WCPA), Wash. Rev. Code 19.86.010-19.86.920. Determining that Pitsicalis had Article III standing, the court concluded, inter alia, that the WPRA was constitutional as applied to the narrow set of non-speculative circumstances at issue in this case; Pitsicalis was liable under the Lanham Act for using domain names that infringed Experience Hendrix's trademark "Hendrix"; and Paragraph 5 of the permanent injunction failed to state clearly the terms of the injunction and did not describe in reasonable detail the acts that were and were not restrained. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's determination that the Washington statute was unconstitutional and remanded Pitsicalis's declaratory judgment claims pertaining to the WPRA with instructions to enter judgment on those claims in favor of Experience Hendrix; affirmed the grant of partial summary judgment on Experience Hendrix's claim that Pitsicalis's use of domain names infringed Experience Hendrix's mark; vacated the permanent injunction and remanded so the district court could revise the language at issue; reversed the Rule 50(b)(3) decision to strike most of the jury's award of damages under both the Lanham Act and the WPRA; affirmed the district court's order granting a new trial on damages under both statutes; remanded for a new trial on such damages; vacated the district court's award of attorney's fees under the WCPA; and remanded the fee request for further proceedings. View "Experience Hendrix v. HendrixLicensing.com" on Justia Law