Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

The patents-in-suit, titled “System for Location-Based Triggers for Mobile Devices,” describe improved systems for delivering messages to users based on their locations. The shared specification discloses a communications system that provides users with information tailored to their particular interests or needs based on their presence within a specified location, such as a shopping center that has different retail stores within it. The district court held the claims invalid as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112 based on its view that certain claim limitations are in means-plus-function format and that the specification does not disclose sufficient structure corresponding to the recited functions.The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the “code”/“application” limitations are not written in means-plus-function format because they would have connoted sufficiently definite structure to persons of ordinary skill in the art. View "Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp." on Justia Law

CSIRO, a research arm of the Australian government, owns six U.S. patents, concerning the engineering of plants, particularly canola, to produce specified oils not native to the plants. After the resolution of jurisdiction and venue issues in an infringement case against BASF and Cargill, the case proceeded to trial on eight claims of the six patents. The parties stipulated to infringement of five patents; the jury found infringement of the sixth. The jury rejected invalidity challenges, including the challenge that the asserted patent claims lacked adequate written-description support. The jury found that BASF co-owned one patent (precluding infringement of that patent) but not the others. The district court ruled that the evidence would not support a finding of willfulness, denied a conduct-stopping injunction, and granted an ongoing royalty on all five patents found infringed.The Federal Circuit affirmed that Eastern District of Virginia venue was proper and affirmed the verdict rejecting the written-description challenge to the claims that are limited to canola plants but reversed as to the broader genus claims. The court agreed that five patents were not co-owned by BASF but reversed the contrary verdict as to the sixth, so that infringement of all valid claims of the six patents is now settled. The court upheld the district court’s refusal to submit willfulness to the jury and its decision on an evidentiary issue concerning past damages but remanded for reconsideration of the remedy. View "BASF Plant Science, LP v. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation" on Justia Law

Almirall’s patent relates to methods of treating acne or rosacea with dapsone formulations that include an acrylamide/sodium acryloyldimethyl taurate copolymer (A/SA) thickening agent and the solvent diethylene glycol monoethyl ether (DGME), which allows compositions to be prepared with increased solubilized concentrations of dapsone. A polymeric viscosity builder such as an A/SA, can minimize the yellowing of the composition and can reduce the particle size, and minimize a gritty feel upon application. The Almirral patent includes 62 generalized composition embodiments and eight specific example formulations.On inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board agreed that claims 1–8 would have been obvious over prior art at the time the alleged invention was made. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Board’s decision sets forth factual findings of similarity between carbomers and A/SA agents that support its conclusion that prior art discloses a range for each component of the composition that either fully encompasses or overlaps/abuts the ranges and amounts for those components recited in the challenged claims, sufficient to create a presumption of obviousness. The court upheld the Board’s analysis of whether a skilled artisan would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining prior art teachings to achieve the claimed invention. View "Almirall, LLC v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals, LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order vacating the jury's damages award for copyright infringement and granting judgment as a matter of law to Katy Perry and other defendants. Plaintiffs, Christian hip-hop artists, filed suit alleging that a repeating instrumental figure in one of Katy Perry's songs copied a similar ostinato in one of plaintiffs' songs.The panel held that copyright law protects musical works only to the extent that they are original works of authorship. In this case, the trial record compels the panel to conclude that the ostinatos at issue consist entirely of commonplace musical elements, and that the similarities between them do not arise out of an original combination of these elements. Therefore, the jury's verdict finding defendants liable for copyright infringement was unsupported by the evidence. View "Gray v. Hudson" on Justia Law

Cirrus petitioned for inter partes review of a patent that describes ballistic parachute systems that use a rocket to deploy a parachute, slowing the fall of a crashing aircraft. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that the challenged claims are unpatentable as obvious over a combination of Cirrus Design’s Pilot Operation Handbook (POH) and the James patent. The POH describes the operation of a ballistic parachute system installed on the Cirrus SR22 airplane. The James patent, titled “Semiautonomous Flight Director,” describes a “device for programming industry-standard autopilots” to allow “for the safe operation of any aircraft by an unskilled pilot. The Board determined that proposed amended claims lacked written description.The Federal Circuit affirmed. The determination that the ordinarily skilled artisan would program James’s autonomous system to perform the claimed flight maneuvers suggested by POH is the result of a faithful application of precedent on obviousness, including a directive to consider the creativity of the ordinarily skilled artisan. That the prior art cautioned pilots not to use autopilot in some emergency situations on some aircraft does not mean that the skilled artisan would have been dissuaded from doing so in all emergency situations on all aircraft. Substantial evidence supports the finding of lack of written description. View "Fleming v. Cirrus Design Corp." on Justia Law

MPH’s challenged patents share a written description and purport to improve secure messaging between arbitrary hosts (e.g., messaging across local area networks (LANs), private and public wide area networks (WANs), or the internet) utilizing Internet Protocol (IP) security protocols. MPH asserted claims of the challenged patents against Apple, which petitioned for inter partes review of each claim of the three patents.The Board held that Apple failed to show that several dependent claims of each patent would have been obvious in view of a combination of prior art. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The court upheld the constructions of “intermediate computer configured to receive from a mobile computer a secure message sent to the first network address” as requiring the mobile computer to send the message to the first network address and of “information fields” as requiring “two or more fields.” Substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding with respect to motivation to modify the combination of prior art to use more than one field; Apple failed to show a motivation to modify the prior art combination to include substitution. View "Apple Inc. v. MPH Technologies Oy" on Justia Law

Broadcom’s 583 patent is directed to reducing power consumption in computer systems by “gating” clock signals with circuit elements to turn the signals ON and OFF for downstream parts of the circuit; its 752 patent is directed to a memory access unit that improves upon conventional methods of requesting data located at different addresses within shared memory. Broadcom alleged violations of 19 U.S.C. 1337 based on Renesas's importation of products that allegedly infringe those patents.An ALJ held that Broadcom failed to demonstrate a violation with respect to the 583 patent, citing the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement; Broadcom failed to identify an actual domestic industry article that practices claim 25. For the 752 patent, the ALJ held that claim 5 would have been unpatentable as obvious. The International Trade Commission affirmed. In inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board held that claims 25 and 26 of the 583 patent and claims 1, 2, 5, 7, and 8 of the 752 patent would have been obvious over prior art but that Renesas failed to demonstrate that other claims of the 583 patent would have been obvious.With respect to the 583 patent, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s holding and affirmed the holding that there was no domestic industry. With respect to the 752 patent, the court affirmed the entirety of the Board’s holding. View "Broadcom Corp. v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

Tumey filed suit alleging that Tumey's representation of Voice Tech Corporation in pending and separate patent infringement lawsuits against Mycroft prompted Mycroft to retaliate by launching and/or inspiring a series of cyber-attacks against Tumey. The complaint alleges violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Wire and Electronic Communications Act, and various state and common law claims.The Eighth Circuit applied the Dataphase factors and vacated the district court's grant of preliminary injunctive relief to Tumey, concluding that Tumey did not show a likelihood of success on the merits of its claims. In this case, even if there was no procedural due process issue, the district court committed a clear error of judgment when it issued a preliminary injunction based on a lack of evidence demonstrating Mycroft was responsible for the conduct at issue. Furthermore, even if Tumey came forward with sufficient evidence to connect Mycroft to the unlawful acts, Tumey has not convinced the court that money damages are insufficient to compensate him for the alleged injuries. The court found that this is a rare case in which the history, proceedings, and order reflect a sufficiently high degree of antagonism against Mycroft to warrant reassignment of the case on remand. View "Tumey v. Mycroft AI, Inc." on Justia Law

Continental, an auto-parts supplier, brought suit in the Northern District of California against several standard-essential patent holders and their licensing agent, claiming violations of federal antitrust law and attendant state law. The case was then transferred to federal district court where it was dismissed at the pleadings stage.The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of standing. The court concluded that the two theories Continental alleges, based on indemnity obligations and a refusal to license, are inadequate to prove the supplier has Article III standing, let alone that it has antitrust standing or has suffered harm flowing from an antitrust violation. In this case, defendants' harm to Continental on account of Continental's indemnity obligations to original equipment manufacturers remains speculative. Furthermore, the court disagreed with the district court's conclusion that Continental's alleged unsuccessful attempts to obtain licenses on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms from defendants comprise an injury in fact conferring Article III standing. View "Continental Automotive Systems v. Avanci, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a sports psychologist, filed suit against the school district for copyright infringement after the softball team and flag corps at a public high school used their Twitter accounts to post a motivational passage from plaintiff's book, Winning Isn’t Normal.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of the school district's motion to dismiss and award of attorney's fees. The court considered the four factors of the fair use doctrine and concluded that even though the nature of the work favors plaintiff, the school's use was in good faith and not for a commercial benefit; the small excerpt from the book was freely accessible to the public; and plaintiff has failed to plausibly allege a substantially adverse impact on a legitimate market for his copyrighted work. The court concluded that "the purpose and character" factor, as well as "the effect of the use" factor, favor the school district. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by awarding attorney's fees to the school district. View "Bell v. Eagle Mountain Saginaw Independent School District" on Justia Law