Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

This case involves a dispute between Motorola Solutions, Inc. and Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd., two global competitors in the market for two-way radio systems. After struggling to develop its own competing products, Hytera poached three engineers from Motorola, who, before leaving Motorola, downloaded thousands of documents and files containing Motorola's trade secrets and copyrighted source code. Using this stolen material, Hytera launched a line of radios that were functionally indistinguishable from Motorola's radios. In 2017, Motorola sued Hytera for copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation.The jury found that Hytera had violated both the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) and the Copyright Act, awarding compensatory and punitive damages totaling $764.6 million. The district court later reduced the award to $543.7 million and denied Motorola’s request for a permanent injunction. Both parties appealed.The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the district court must recalculate copyright damages, which will need to be reduced substantially from the original award of $136.3 million. The court affirmed the district court’s award of $135.8 million in compensatory damages and $271.6 million in punitive damages under the DTSA. The court also found that the district court erred in denying Motorola’s motion for reconsideration of the denial of permanent injunctive relief. The case was remanded for the district court to reconsider the issue of permanent injunctive relief. View "Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd." on Justia Law

Ascension Data & Analytics, Rocktop Partners, and Rocktop Holdings II (collectively, "Ascension") entered into a contract with Pairprep, Inc. for data extraction services. The contract was terminated due to an alleged data breach and Pairprep's failure to extract reliable data. Ascension then contracted with another vendor, Altada Technologies Solutions, but that contract was also terminated early due to Altada's financial crisis. Ascension initiated arbitration proceedings against Pairprep to recover remediation costs incurred as a result of the data breach. Pairprep counterclaimed, alleging breach of contract and violation of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act. The arbitration panel rejected Ascension's defenses and granted Pairprep a monetary award.Ascension filed an application in the Northern District of Texas to vacate the arbitration award, arguing that Pairprep's counterclaims were barred by res judicata due to a previous dismissal of identical claims against Altada. Pairprep filed an application to confirm the arbitral award in a Texas state court, which was granted. The district court dismissed Ascension's application for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and denied its motion for preliminary injunctive relief.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision. The court applied the Supreme Court's decision in Badgerow v. Walters, which held that a district court must have an independent jurisdictional basis to consider applications to confirm, modify, or vacate arbitral awards under the Federal Arbitration Act. The court found that Ascension had not established an independent basis for subject matter jurisdiction, as the parties were not diverse and Ascension did not identify any federal law entitling it to relief. Therefore, the court concluded that the dispute over the enforceability of the arbitral award must be litigated in state court. View "Ascension Data v. Pairprep" on Justia Law

The case involves Amarin Pharma, Inc., Amarin Pharmaceuticals Ireland Limited, and Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (collectively, “Amarin”) and Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (collectively, “Hikma”). Amarin markets and sells icosapent ethyl, an ethyl ester of an omega-3 fatty acid commonly found in fish oils, under the brand name Vascepa®. In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) approved Vascepa for the treatment of severe hypertriglyceridemia. In 2019, following additional research and clinical trials, the FDA approved Vascepa for a second use: as a treatment to reduce cardiovascular risk in patients having blood triglyceride levels of at least 150 mg/dL.In the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, Hikma moved to dismiss Amarin’s complaint for failure to state a claim. The court granted Hikma’s motion, concluding that Amarin’s allegations against Hikma did not plausibly state a claim for induced infringement.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the decision of the district court. The court held that Amarin had plausibly pleaded that Hikma had induced infringement of the asserted patents. The court noted that the case was not a traditional Hatch-Waxman case or a section viii case, but rather a run-of-the-mill induced infringement case arising under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b). The court concluded that the totality of the allegations, taken as true, plausibly plead that Hikma “actively” induced healthcare providers’ direct infringement. View "AMARIN PHARMA, INC. v. HIKMA PHARMACEUTICALS USA INC. " on Justia Law

The case involves a trademark dispute between two appliance companies, Appliance Liquidation Outlet, L.L.C. (ALO) and Axis Supply Corporation (Axis). ALO had been operating under its name for over two decades when Axis opened a store in 2021, using a large banner with the words “Appliance Liquidation.” ALO claimed that this led to confusion among customers who believed ALO operated both stores. When Axis refused to change its name, ALO sued for trademark infringement.The district court found that ALO had valid trademarks in the words “Appliance Liquidation Outlet” and “Appliance Liquidation,” and that Axis’s banner infringed those marks. The court ruled in favor of ALO, prohibiting Axis from using ALO’s marks or causing confusion with ALO’s brand, and awarded ALO attorney’s fees.Axis appealed, arguing that the marks were not valid, its banner did not infringe those marks, and the district court erred in awarding ALO attorney’s fees. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed in part, finding that the district court erred in ruling that “Appliance Liquidation” is a valid trademark, but did not err in finding that “Appliance Liquidation Outlet” is a valid mark that Axis’s banner infringed. The court reversed the judgment as to the “Appliance Liquidation” mark, affirmed as to the “Appliance Liquidation Outlet” mark, and vacated the fee award. View "Appliance v. Axis Supply" on Justia Law

The case revolves around a dispute between Apprio, Inc., a government contractor, and its former employee, Neil Zaccari. Zaccari, a Senior Technical Manager at Apprio, had developed a regulatory compliance software prior to his employment. During his tenure, he updated the software, demonstrated it at work, and handed it over to Apprio upon request. Apprio then sent Zaccari a document titled “Proprietary Information and Assignment of Inventions Agreement,” which Zaccari acknowledged through Apprio’s human resources portal. After his termination, Zaccari copyrighted the updated software and sued Apprio for breaching the agreement when it allegedly forced him to turn over a copy of the software to an Apprio client. In response, Apprio countersued Zaccari for breaching the agreement when he refused to assign his rights in the updated software to Apprio.The District Court combined the cases, dismissed Zaccari’s case for failure to state a claim, and granted partial and full summary judgment for Apprio with respect to contractual assignment of rights in the updated software and its breach of contract claim. Zaccari appealed, arguing that the agreement is not an enforceable contract and, alternatively, that the agreement neither supports the assignment of his rights in the updated software to Apprio nor a finding that he breached the agreement.The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed with Zaccari's arguments. The court held that Zaccari’s “acknowledgment” of the agreement created an enforceable contract that requires Zaccari to assign his rights in the updated software to Apprio. Accordingly, Zaccari breached the binding agreement by failing to assign those rights to Apprio and disclosing the updated software’s underlying code to the U.S. Copyright Office in order to obtain the copyright. The court affirmed the District Court's decision. View "Apprio, Inc. v. Zaccari" on Justia Law

The case involves Beteiro, LLC, which owns several patents related to facilitating gaming or gambling activities at a remote location. The patents disclose an invention that allows a user to participate in live gaming or gambling activity via a user communication device, even if the user is not in the same location as the gaming venue. Beteiro filed multiple patent infringement cases against various companies, alleging that they infringe certain claims of the patents by providing gambling and event wagering services.The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissed Beteiro's cases for failure to state a claim based on the subject matter ineligibility of the patent claims. The court found that the claims were directed to an abstract idea and did not contain an inventive concept. Beteiro appealed the decision.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's decision. The court agreed that Beteiro's claims were directed to the abstract idea of exchanging information concerning a bet and allowing or disallowing the bet based on where the user is located. The court also found that the claims did not provide an inventive concept because they achieved the abstract steps using several generic computers. The court concluded that Beteiro's claims amounted to nothing more than the practice of an abstract idea using conventional computer equipment, including GPS on a mobile phone, which are not eligible for patent under current Section 101 jurisprudence. View "BETEIRO, LLC v. DRAFTKINGS INC. " on Justia Law

The case involves Analog Technologies, Inc. ("ATI") and its CEO Dr. Gang Liu, who accused Analog Devices, Inc. ("ADI") of misappropriating trade secrets under federal and Massachusetts law. ATI claimed that they took reasonable measures to maintain the secrecy of development materials shared with ADI, and ADI violated its obligation to limit its use of those materials. The dispute originated from two agreements: a 2000 agreement, which included a confidentiality clause that expired five years after termination, and a 2015 agreement, which superseded the 2000 agreement and released ADI from any claims related to the 2000 agreement.The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted ADI's motion to dismiss the claim, ruling that any restrictions on ADI's use of the materials had expired under the clear terms of the written agreement among the parties. The court also found that there were no trade secrets under the 2000 agreement still in existence to have been misappropriated in 2021.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision. The appellate court concluded that ADI did not misappropriate the development materials as the restrictions on ADI's use of these materials under the 2000 agreement had expired in 2011. Furthermore, the 2015 agreement released ADI from any remaining use restrictions. The court also rejected the argument that ADI had a duty to limit its use of the materials at the time of the alleged misappropriation, as such a duty did not exist under the 2015 agreement. View "Analog Technologies, Inc. v. Analog Devices, Inc." on Justia Law

This case involves a dispute between the owners of El Gran Combo, one of the most popular Puerto Rican bands in history, and the band's former lead vocalist, Carlos Aponte-Cruz. The dispute centers on the interpretation of the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, which entitles the "recording artist or artists featured on [a] sound recording" to a 45% share of certain royalties that the recording generated. Aponte-Cruz argues that he is the "artist . . . featured" on certain El Gran Combo sound recordings for which he was the lead vocalist and is therefore entitled to his portion of the 45% share of the statutory royalties for those recordings. The owners of El Gran Combo, on the other hand, contend that the band as an independent entity distinct from any of its individual members is the "artist . . . featured" on those recordings.The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico ruled in favor of the owners of El Gran Combo, finding that the band, as a distinct legal entity, was the group most prominently featured on the sound recordings and thus entitled to collect the royalties as the featured artist. The court also ruled that Rafael Ithier, as the sole owner of El Gran Combo, was entitled to collect the featured artist royalties due to the corporation.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the District Court's ruling. The appellate court concluded that even though the covers for the El Gran Combo albums that contain the disputed recordings refer only to the band itself and not to any of its individual members, Aponte-Cruz, as a "recording artist . . . featured" on the recordings in dispute, is entitled to his portion of the 45% share of the statutory royalties for those recordings. The court found that neither EGC Corp. nor Ithier is entitled to the 45% royalty share in the recordings at issue. View "Ithier v. Aponte Cruz" on Justia Law

Insulet Corp. and EOFlow are medical device manufacturers that produce insulin pump patches. Insulet began developing its OmniPod product in the early 2000s, and EOFlow started developing its EOPatch product after its founding in 2011. Around the same time, four former Insulet employees joined EOFlow. In 2023, reports surfaced that Medtronic had started a process to acquire EOFlow. Soon after, Insulet sued EOFlow for violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to enjoin all technical communications between EOFlow and Medtronic in view of its trade secrets claims.The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts temporarily restrained EOFlow from disclosing products or manufacturing technical information related to the EOPatch or OmniPod products. The court then granted Insulet’s request for a preliminary injunction, finding strong evidence that Insulet is likely to succeed on the merits of its trade secrets claim, strong evidence of misappropriation, and that irreparable harm to Insulet crystallized when EOFlow announced an intended acquisition by Medtronic. The injunction enjoined EOFlow from manufacturing, marketing, or selling any product that was designed, developed, or manufactured, in whole or in part, using or relying on alleged trade secrets of Insulet.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s order. The court found that the district court had failed to address the statute of limitations, lacked a tailored analysis as to what specific information actually constituted a trade secret, and found it hard to tell what subset of that information was likely to have been misappropriated by EOFlow. The court also found that the district court had failed to meaningfully engage with the public interest prong. The court concluded that Insulet had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits and other factors for a preliminary injunction. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion. View "INSULET CORP. v. EOFLOW, CO. LTD. " on Justia Law

The case revolves around a dispute between the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System and IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. over the interpretation of a patent licensing agreement. The agreement, signed in 2000, pertained to a peptide used to test for Lyme disease in dogs. The agreement stipulated different royalty rates for different types of products, depending on what tests were included. The dispute arose over the interpretation of two royalty provisions, one for 1% and the other for 2.5%, which could both be read to apply to the same sales of goods. IDEXX Laboratories had been paying the lower royalty rate, but the University argued that the higher rate should have been applied.The trial court ruled in favor of the University, concluding that the licensing agreement was clear and unambiguous and that the University was entitled to recover the unpaid royalties claimed plus accrued interest. On appeal, IDEXX Laboratories argued for the first time that the licensing agreement was ambiguous. The court of appeals agreed, concluding that both interpretations of the royalty provisions were reasonable and conflicting, and therefore the agreement was ambiguous. It reversed the trial court's decision and remanded the case.The Supreme Court of Texas disagreed with the court of appeals. It found that the royalty provisions were not ambiguous when read in the context of the licensing agreement itself and the objective circumstances in which the agreement was produced. The court concluded that the provisions were most reasonably interpreted to require royalties on IDEXX Laboratories' products at the higher rate stipulated in the agreement. The court reversed the court of appeals' judgment and remanded the case to that court for further proceedings. View "Board of Regents of the University of Texas System v. IDEXX Laboratories, Inc." on Justia Law