Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

Charles Curry, Jr., a former competitive powerlifter and bodybuilder, started a nutritional supplements business called Get Diesel Nutrition in 2002. He began selling a testosterone-boosting supplement called "Diesel Test" in 2005. Revolution Laboratories, LLC, founded by Joshua and Barry Nussbaum, also sold a supplement called "Diesel Test" starting in 2016. Curry, acting without a lawyer, filed a lawsuit against Revolution and the Nussbaums in 2017, asserting trademark claims under the federal Lanham Act and Illinois common law. Curry later obtained counsel, and the case proceeded to a jury trial in May 2023, resulting in a verdict for Curry.The jury awarded Curry $2,500 in actual damages for loss of goodwill and reputation and $500,000 as disgorgement of Revolution’s profits from the infringement. Additionally, the jury awarded Curry $300,000 in punitive damages against each of Joshua, Barry, and Revolution, totaling $900,000. The district court later ruled that disgorgement of profits under the Lanham Act is an equitable remedy for the judge to decide and recalculated the appropriate profits award to be $547,095.44.The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reviewed the case. Defendants challenged the district court's decision to allow Curry's punitive damages request to go to the jury and argued that the punitive damage awards were excessive in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's decision, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Curry to seek punitive damages and that the punitive damage awards were not unconstitutionally excessive. The court concluded that the ratio of punitive damages to the combined compensatory and disgorgement awards was constitutionally permissible. View "Curry v. Revolution Laboratories, LLC" on Justia Law

Teradata Corporation sued SAP SE, alleging that SAP illegally conditioned sales of its business-management software (S/4HANA) on the purchase of its back-end database engine (HANA) in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and misappropriated Teradata’s trade secrets under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Teradata claimed that SAP’s tying arrangement forced customers to buy HANA, harming competition in the enterprise data warehousing (EDW) market. Teradata also alleged that SAP used its confidential batched merge method, a technique for efficient data aggregation, without authorization.The United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted summary judgment in favor of SAP. The court excluded Teradata’s expert testimony on market definition and market power, finding the methodology unreliable. Without this testimony, the court concluded that Teradata failed to create a material dispute on its tying claim. The court also ruled against Teradata on the trade secret claim, stating that Teradata did not properly designate the batched merge method as confidential and that the agreements between the parties gave SAP the right to use the method.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment. The appellate court held that the district court abused its discretion by excluding the expert’s testimony, which was based on reasonable methodologies. The court found that Teradata raised a triable issue regarding SAP’s market power in the tying market and the anticompetitive effects in the tied market. The court also determined that there were material factual disputes regarding whether Teradata properly designated the batched merge method as confidential and whether the agreements allowed SAP to use the method. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "TERADATA CORPORATION V. SAP SE" on Justia Law

CloudofChange, LLC sued NCR Corporation, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,400,640 and 10,083,012, which disclose an online web-based point-of-sale (POS) builder system. The system allows non-expert business operators to assemble and manage POS systems. NCR's product, NCR Silver, was accused of infringing these patents. NCR Silver is a web-based POS solution that requires merchants to use their own internet connection and POS hardware, although NCR occasionally provides the hardware.The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas found that NCR's merchants' use of the system could be attributed to NCR under principles of vicarious liability and denied NCR's motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of no direct infringement. The jury found NCR directly infringed the asserted claims, awarded CloudofChange $13.2 million in damages, and found NCR's infringement willful. NCR renewed its motion for JMOL, arguing that it did not use the claimed system as a matter of law, but the district court denied the motion.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the district court's denial of JMOL. The Federal Circuit held that it is NCR's merchants, not NCR, who use the claimed system by putting it into service and benefiting from it. The court also concluded that NCR is not vicariously liable for its merchants' use of the system, as NCR does not direct or control the merchants' actions in putting the system to use. Consequently, the Federal Circuit vacated the jury verdict and reversed the district court's decision. View "CLOUDOFCHANGE, LLC v. NCR CORPORATION " on Justia Law

Oracle International Corporation sued Rimini Street, Inc. for copyright infringement and violations of the Lanham Act. Oracle alleged that Rimini, a third-party provider of software support services, infringed on its copyrights by using Oracle's software in unauthorized ways. Rimini had previously been found to infringe Oracle's copyrights and had changed its business model, seeking a declaratory judgment that its new processes did not infringe Oracle's copyrights. Oracle counterclaimed, leading to a bench trial.The United States District Court for the District of Nevada found that Rimini's new processes still infringed Oracle's copyrights and issued a permanent injunction against Rimini. The court ordered Rimini to delete various software files and issue a press release correcting alleged misstatements. Rimini appealed the decision, challenging several aspects of the district court's rulings.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reviewed the case and vacated the district court's holding that Rimini created infringing derivative works based solely on interoperability with Oracle's programs. The court explained that a derivative work must incorporate Oracle's copyrighted work, either literally or nonliterally. The court also vacated the district court's ruling striking Rimini's affirmative defense under 17 U.S.C. § 117(a), which allows the owner of a copy of a computer program to make another copy for certain purposes.Additionally, the Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's ruling that Rimini's creation of "gap customer" environments and use of automated tools to deliver PeopleSoft updates constituted copyright infringement. The court also reversed the district court's ruling that Rimini's security-related statements, except for one about "holistic security," constituted false advertising under the Lanham Act. The court vacated the portions of the injunction appealed by Rimini and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. View "ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION V. RIMINI STREET, INC." on Justia Law

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (PAN) petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of claims 1–18 of Centripetal Networks, LLC’s U.S. Patent No. 10,530,903, asserting that the claims were unpatentable for obviousness based on three prior-art references. The United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the Board) concluded that PAN had not established by a preponderance of the evidence that the claims would have been obvious over the relevant prior art combination.The Board found that PAN’s argument regarding the motivation to combine the references was not sufficiently articulated in the petition. Specifically, the Board determined that PAN had not provided sufficient evidence to show that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify Paxton’s computing system to include Sutton’s step of transmitting a notification of malicious activity after Paxton’s correlation step. The Board concluded that PAN had not established that the claims would have been obvious.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and found that the Board erred by failing to clearly explain its holding or rationale regarding the motivation to combine and whether the proposed combination teaches the final limitation of claim 1. The court noted that the Board did not make a clear finding on whether a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify Paxton by adding Sutton’s step of transmitting a notification of malicious activity after Paxton’s correlation step. The court vacated the Board’s decision and remanded the case for further proceedings to clarify and explain its holding on the motivation to combine the references. View "PALO ALTO NETWORKS, INC. v. CENTRIPETAL NETWORKS, LLC " on Justia Law

Crown Packaging Technology, Inc. and CarnaudMetalbox Engineering Ltd. (collectively, “Crown”) sued Belvac Production Machinery, Inc. (“Belvac”) for infringing claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,308,570, 9,968,982, and 10,751,784, which relate to necking machines used in manufacturing metal beverage cans. Belvac argued that the patents were invalid under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) because a necking machine embodying the invention was on sale in the U.S. before the critical date. Both parties sought summary judgment on this issue.The United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia granted summary judgment to Crown, ruling that the patents were not invalid under the on-sale bar, and denied Belvac’s motion. After a jury trial, the court entered a judgment that the asserted claims were not invalid and not infringed. Crown appealed the noninfringement judgment, and Belvac appealed the no invalidity judgment.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court held that the letter sent by Crown to Complete Packaging Machinery constituted a commercial offer for sale in the U.S. before the critical date, thus invalidating the patents under § 102(b). The court reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Crown and remanded for entry of judgment in Belvac’s favor. The court did not address the issue of infringement due to the invalidity finding. View "Crown Packaging Technology, Inc. v. Belvac Production Machinery, Inc." on Justia Law

Phoenix Lighting Group, L.L.C. (Phoenix) sued Genlyte Thomas Group, L.L.C. (DCO) and obtained a jury verdict for tortious interference, misappropriation of trade secrets, and civil conspiracy. The jury awarded Phoenix compensatory and punitive damages, as well as reasonable attorney fees. The trial court awarded additional punitive damages for the misappropriation claim and enhanced the attorney fees by a multiplier of two.The Ninth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's decision in part but reversed the application of the punitive-damages cap for the conspiracy claim, remanding the case for further proceedings. Phoenix requested postjudgment attorney fees, which the Ninth District did not specifically address but remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.The Supreme Court of Ohio accepted jurisdiction over DCO's challenge to the enhancement of the attorney-fee award. The court reversed the Ninth District's affirmation of the enhanced attorney fees and remanded the case to the trial court to issue a final judgment granting Phoenix attorney fees in the amount of $1,991,507.On remand, the trial court awarded Phoenix postjudgment attorney fees and expenses. The Ninth District affirmed this award, concluding that the trial court had jurisdiction to consider postjudgment attorney fees and did not exceed its authority.The Supreme Court of Ohio reviewed the case and held that the trial court exceeded its authority by considering and granting Phoenix's motion for postjudgment attorney fees and expenses. The court reversed the Ninth District's judgment and remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to vacate its award of postjudgment attorney fees and expenses and to enter final judgment. View "Phoenix Lighting Group, L.L.C. v. Genlyte Thomas Group, L.L.C." on Justia Law

DDR Holdings, LLC (DDR) sued Priceline.com LLC and Booking.com B.V. (collectively, Priceline.com) for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,818,399 (’399 patent). The ’399 patent relates to generating a composite web page that combines visual elements of a “host” website with content from a third-party “merchant.” The dispute centered on the construction of the claim terms “merchants” and “commerce object.” DDR argued that “merchants” should include purveyors of both goods and services, while Priceline.com contended it should be limited to purveyors of goods alone.The United States District Court for the District of Delaware construed “merchants” as “producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to be sold” and “commerce object” to exclude services. Following this construction, the parties stipulated to non-infringement, agreeing that the accused instrumentalities did not infringe the asserted claims of the ’399 patent under the court’s claim constructions. The district court entered final judgment in favor of Priceline.com, and DDR appealed.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the district court’s claim construction de novo. The court affirmed the district court’s construction of “merchants” as purveyors of goods, not services, noting the significant deletion of any reference to services in the final specification of the ’399 patent compared to the provisional application. The court also affirmed the construction of “commerce object” as “a product, a product category, a catalog, or an indication that a product, product category, or catalog should be chosen dynamically,” consistent with the construction of “merchants.”The Federal Circuit concluded that the district court correctly construed the disputed terms and affirmed the judgment of non-infringement in favor of Priceline.com. View "DDR Holdings, LLC v. Priceline.com LLC" on Justia Law

Galderma Laboratories, L.P. and TCD Royalty Sub LP (collectively, Galderma) own and market Oracea®, a doxycycline-based treatment for rosacea. They hold U.S. Patent Nos. 7,749,532 and 8,206,740 (the Asserted Patents), which cover a specific formulation of doxycycline. Lupin Inc. and Lupin Ltd. (collectively, Lupin) filed an abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) to market a generic version of Oracea®, claiming bioequivalence. Galderma sued Lupin for patent infringement under the Hatch-Waxman Act, asserting that Lupin’s product infringed the Asserted Patents.The United States District Court for the District of Delaware held a three-day bench trial and found that Lupin’s ANDA product did not infringe the Asserted Patents. The court concluded that Galderma failed to prove that Lupin’s product met the specific formulation requirements of the Asserted Patents, particularly the immediate release (IR) and delayed release (DR) portions of doxycycline. The court also found that Galderma did not demonstrate infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. Galderma argued that the district court erred in disregarding dissolution test data from Lupin’s ANDA, admitting evidence from a rebuttal batch, imposing additional claim limitations, and not finding infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. The Federal Circuit found no clear error in the district court’s findings. It held that the district court correctly determined that the two-stage dissolution test did not represent in vivo behavior and that Galderma did not prove its theory of infringement. The court also found no abuse of discretion in admitting the rebuttal batch evidence and no imposition of additional claim limitations. Finally, the court upheld the district court’s finding that Galderma did not prove infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, concluding that Lupin’s ANDA product did not infringe the Asserted Patents. View "Galderma Laboratories, L.P. v. Lupin, Inc." on Justia Law

PS Products, Inc. and Billy Pennington (collectively, PSP) own a U.S. Design Patent for a long-spiked electrode for a stun device. They filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Arkansas against Panther Trading Company, Inc. (Panther) for patent infringement. Panther responded with a Rule 11 letter and a motion to dismiss, arguing the infringement claims were frivolous and the venue was improper. PSP did not respond to these communications and later moved to voluntarily dismiss the case with prejudice. Panther then sought attorney fees and sanctions, claiming the lawsuit was frivolous.The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the case with prejudice and awarded Panther attorney fees and costs under 35 U.S.C. § 285, deeming the case exceptional. The court also imposed $25,000 in deterrence sanctions on PSP under its inherent power, citing PSP's history of filing meritless lawsuits. PSP filed a motion for reconsideration of the sanctions, which the district court denied.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. PSP appealed the $25,000 sanctions, arguing the district court lacked authority to impose them in addition to attorney fees and that the court applied the wrong legal standard. The Federal Circuit held that the district court did not err in imposing sanctions under its inherent power, even after awarding attorney fees under § 285. The court found that PSP's conduct, including filing a meritless lawsuit and citing the wrong venue statute, justified the sanctions. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's decision and declined Panther's request for attorney fees for the appeal, determining the appeal was not frivolous as argued. View "PS Products, Inc. v. Panther Trading Co., Inc." on Justia Law