Tagged: Patent Litigation
On April 1, 2015, The Federal Circuit dismissed JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s (“JPMC”) interlocutory appeal of a district court ruling denying a motion to stay pending a covered business method review (“CBMR”). Addressing an issue of first impression, the Court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction under §18(b)(2) of the America Invents Act (“AIA”) to review the district court’s order because JPMC moved for a stay while JPMC’s CBM petition was under review by the USPTO Director and a CBM proceeding had yet to be instituted. In Intellectual Ventures v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Intellectual Ventures (“IV”) sued JPMC alleging infringement of five patents. JPMC responded by filing a motion to stay pending the results of four CBMR petitions that it was planning to file. Immediately after, JPMC filed two CBM petitions covering only two of the asserted patents.
District Court Judge Sue L. Robinson, U.S.D.J., of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware granted a rare preliminary injunction to the declaratory judgment defendant in a patent infringement action, highlighting the importance of presenting infringement arguments under both parties’ claim constructions and expert analysis that supports invalidity. CryoLife Inc. v. C.R. Bard Inc. et al., No. 14-559, Dkt. Entry No. 116, Mem. Order. The injunction bars sales of PerClot Topical, CryoLife’s blood-clotting powder product.
A recent decision by the Federal Circuit, Helferich Patent Licensing LLC v. The New York Times Co., has held that the applicability of the patent exhaustion defense may be limited to a claim-by-claim determination depending on the nature of the licensed rights granted. In Helferich, the patent owner held rights to a portfolio of patents with claims relating to providing content to wireless handsets and relating to methods for updating content stored on the wireless handsets. Prior to bringing the present litigation, Helferich had licensed handset manufacturers under the patents with the license grants being directed specifically to the handset claims. Subsequently, the patent owner brought suit against The New York Times Company and others asserting infringement of the content claims.
All branches of government have worked to decrease frivolous litigation by non-practicing entities (“NPEs”), or patent trolls, in order to both encourage developing technology and allow businesses to utilize that technology without a looming threat of disruptive and costly litigation. In the course of our coverage of these efforts, we have seen state and federal legislative bodies, as well as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), the executive branch, and the courts, suggesting potential solutions. Congress is currently weighing a revamped version of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s Innovation Act bill, which seeks to reform patent litigation by focusing on pleading standards.
Traditionally, claim construction, which can be an important phase in patent litigation for setting the metes and bounds of a patent, has been viewed as a pure question of law and subject to de novo review by the Federal Circuit on appeal. This was considered problematic by some because the district court’s findings on claim construction, which the parties had been relying on throughout the litigation, were not given any deference on appeal.
On December 5, 2014, an 11-person jury decided in favor of defendants AstraZeneca PLC and Ranbaxy Laboratories, Inc. in the first pay-for-delay class action trial since the United States Supreme Court in FTC v. Actavis, Inc. opened the door on antitrust suits based on patent settlements. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. was also defending the suit before reaching a settlement shortly before the trial ended. United States District Court Judge William Young of the District of Massachusetts last year permitted certification for the class members, including union health plans and insurance companies, based on an alleged injury of supracompetitive prices for AstraZeneca’s brand name heartburn drug, Nexium®.
On November 12, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that Ultramercial, LLC’s patent covering an eleven step process of watching a commercial as a condition of accessing free media content is invalid as covering patent ineligible material. The patent at issue, U.S. Patent No. 7,346,545 (“the ’545 patent”), claimed a method for distributing copyrighted products (such as songs, movies, books) over the Internet where the consumer receives a copyrighted product for free in exchange for viewing an advertisement, and the advertiser pays for the copyrighted content. The Federal Circuit had held the ’545 patent claimed patent eligible subject matter twice before and both times was reversed by the United States Supreme Court. This iteration saw the Federal Circuit uphold the grant of a motion to dismiss claims of infringement by the United States District Court for the Central District of California on the basis of patent-ineligibility.
We have previously posted on the judiciary’s attempts to address frivolous and unwarranted suits brought by patent holding, non-practicing entities (“NPEs”). To deter such litigation, courts have the power to award attorneys’ fees and costs to defendants subject to such baseless suits. In an October 23 Opinion and Order in Lumen View Tech., LLC v. Findthebest.com, Inc., District Judge Denise Cote, applying 35 U.S.C. § 285 (“Section 285”), not only awarded the defendant its attorneys’ fees and costs, but also applied an enhancement to the awarded fees.
An opinion issued on October 6, 2014, by Judge Sheridan of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey further muddied the legal waters as to what type of “reverse payments” made by makers of brand-name pharmaceuticals to their generic competitors to settle patent litigation are subject to antitrust scrutiny under the Supreme Court’s decision in FTC v. Actavis. Judge Sheridan held that Actavis applies to non-monetary payments, such as a promise by the brand-name manufacturer in exchange for which the generic agrees to delay entry. Importantly, however, a non-monetary payment must be capable of being reliably converted to a monetary value so that it can be evaluated against the Actavis factors. Judge Sheridan’s holding runs counter to Judge Walls’s decision earlier this year in In re Lamictal Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, which limited Actavis to reverse payments involving an exchange of cash and was the subject of a prior blog post.
A recent decision from the United States District Court of the District of Hawaii reveals an effective strategy for responding to non-practicing entity (NPE) suits and obtaining leverage early on in the litigation. This strategy takes into account the business model of some NPEs to name many (unconnected) industry players in one lawsuit and plead only bare allegations of patent infringement.
