Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert

Tagged: Patent Litigation

What are “Acts of Infringement” and Where is “A Regular and Established Place of Business” for a Hatch-Waxman Defendant: The District of Delaware Weighs in on the Patent Venue Rule

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Posted in Patent / Pharmaceuticals

On September 20, 2017

We previously reported on the Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, in which the Supreme Court created a new patent venue rule. The patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), provides that patent infringement suits “may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” In TC Heartland, the Supreme Court held that “[a]s applied to domestic corporations, ‘reside[nce] in § 1400(b) refers only to the State of incorporation.” A Delaware District Court recently considered the provision of the patent venue statute not addressed by TC Heartland – where venue is proper if a “defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business” in the context of a defendant’s motion to dismiss for improper venue. In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., a patent infringement matter brought under the Hatch-Waxman statute and filed before the TC Heartland decision, the parties did not dispute that, in light of TC Heartland, the defendant, a West Virginia corporation, could not be said to “reside” in Delaware. Thus, venue would be proper in Delaware only if the defendant committed act of infringement in Delaware and had a...

Constitutionality of IPRs and PGPs

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Posted in Biotech / Patent / Pharmaceuticals / USPTO

On September 5, 2017

Recently, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Oil States Energy Services v. Green’s Energy Group, Case 16-712 that may have implications on the constitutionality of America Invents Act (AIA) patent review proceedings such as Inter Partes Review (IPRs) and Post Grant Proceedings (PGPs). The case being reviewed involved a fracking patent granted to Oil States. Green’s Energy petitioned to have the Oil States patent reviewed in an IPR (6,179,053). The IPR resulted in the Oil States patent claims being held unpatentable. But, upon review at the Federal Circuit, Oil States challenged the decision and added that IPRs were not allowed under Article III and the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution. In particular, the Oil States argument advanced that the patents must be tried before a jury because invalidity of patent claims traditionally have been a jury issue before a court of competent jurisdiction. The Oil States argument then indicated that Congress could not delegate that right to an administrative agency. The Federal Circuit affirmed the USPTO’s IPR decision of invalidity, without the issuance of an opinion. Following that decision, Oil States petitioned for certiorari to the Supreme Court regarding three issues. The one issue was whether IPR was in violation of the Constitution’s Article III provision since there was no jury trial adjudication of the...

Federal Circuit Overturned as SCOTUS Creates a New Patent Venue Rule

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Posted in Patent

On May 26, 2017

In TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, the Supreme Court fundamentally changed the national patent litigation landscape when it considered “where proper venue lies for a patent infringement lawsuit brought against a domestic corporation” and held that “[a]s applied to domestic corporations, ‘reside[nce]’ in § 1400(b) refers only to the State of incorporation.” In so holding, the Supreme Court altered the established patent venue rule – that a corporation is deemed to reside anywhere in which it is subject to personal jurisdiction at the time the action is commenced – which was established by the Federal Circuit’s decision in VE Holding Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co., 917 F.2d 1574 (Fed. Cir. 1990). In VE Holding, the Federal Circuit held that the definition of venue in § 1391(c), the general venue statute, also applied to patent cases. The Supreme Court based the TC Heartland decision on its prior ruling in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp., 335 U.S. 222 (1957) in which, as it described in TC Heartland, it “definitively and unambiguously” held that “residence” in § 1400(b) “refers only to the State of incorporation” as well as its reasoning that “[t]he current version of § 1391 [as amended in 2011] does not contain any indication that Congress intended to alter...

Purported Inventor’s Damaging Deposition Testimony Not Sufficient to Warrant Attorneys’ Fees for Failed Inventorship Challenge

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Posted in Patent

On May 25, 2017

If you practiced at the pharma-academia interface during the past five decades, you have no doubt heard the mantra it’s about the science and not about the money when issues arose. It was almost always about the money. A case in point is provided by the recent CAFC decision in University of Utah v. Max Planck Gesellschaft. In that case, Max Planck successfully defended a group of ten patents directed to improved methodologies relating to RNA interference, identified as the Tuschl II patents, against a claim to revise inventorship in these patents to name a Utah scientist (Dr. Bass) as sole or joint inventor. The factual basis for the inventorship claim arose from an interaction between Drs. Bass and Tuschl regarding the original methodology in RNA interference set out in a scientific publication identified, as Tuschl I. Such interaction resulted in what was deemed a mini review by Dr. Bass in the scientific journal cell which described the technology and set forth several hypotheses of Dr. Bass including one proposing the ‘3’ overhangs as the enzyme feature that was possibly responsible for the observed activity obtained by the Tuschl technology. During depositions taken in the course of discovery, defendants’ counsel obtained several damaging admissions from Dr. Bass which clearly undermined the claim of the University...

Privilege Claims and the Common Interest Doctrine

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Posted in Patent

On March 24, 2017

In a recent decision, in the District of Massachusetts, Magistrate Judge M. Page Kelley addressed the validity of privilege claims regarding third party communications under the common interest doctrine. In this case, plaintiffs Crane Security Technologies, Inc. and Visual Physics, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crane Technologies, Inc. (collectively, “Crane”) alleged that defendant Rolling Optics, AB (“RO”) infringed the Crane patents that “relate generally to optical systems that project synthetic images that ‘move’ and that include image icons formed as voids or recesses” therefore, “useful as [an] anti-counterfeiting feature[] on currency.” Crane is the exclusive licensee to the patents-in-suit from third party, Nanoventions (“NV”). The relationship between the parties began in 2002 when Crane entered into a confidentiality agreement with NV because Crane was interested in using NV’s optical system as a security device on currency. Over the course of the next several years, Crane and NV entered into numerous additional agreements, culminating in Crane’s “purchase[] [of] the intellectual property from NV in 2008.” During discovery, RO challenged approximately 600 entries on Crane’s privilege log regarding certain communications between Crane and third parties pertaining to the Crane’s transactions with NV, including: (1) communications between Crane and NV dated before the 2004 license agreement, while NV was prosecuting the patents-in-suit; (2) communications between Crane and NV...

The Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017 May Require a Revisit of Recent Precedent

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Posted in Patent / USPTO

On March 22, 2017

The Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017 is currently pending before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which was recently passed by the House of Representatives with a 238-183 vote. If enacted, this bill would repeal the Chevron deference standard (“Chevron standard”), among other reforms, which potentially will require the courts to reconsider and overturn past precedent regarding the patent statute. The Chevron standard frequently appears in litigations involving federal agencies. This standard is rooted in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S. Ct. 2778 (1984), where the Court held that it should defer to agency interpretations of a statute that is “silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue.” Under this bill, courts instead would have to review relevant questions of law in these cases de novo. This bill would affect agency guidance from all federal agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and the agency most relevant to patent practitioners, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). Although it is difficult to determine the reach of the implications from this bill, if enacted, it is possible that patent practitioners could see the effects. For instance, the 2011 America Invents Act gave the USPTO the...

UK Will Ratify UPC Despite Brexit

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Posted in Patent

On January 3, 2017

Recently, the UK Minister of State for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, announced that the UK will implement the Unitary Patent (UP) and Unified Patent Court (UPC). In the announcement, Neville-Rolfe both praised the UP/UPC system as “provid[ing] an option for businesses that need to protect their inventions across Europe” and cautioned that the UK’s decision to implement the UP/UPC system “should not be seen as preempting the UK’s objectives or position in the forthcoming negotiations with the EU.”

The Supreme Court Weighs in on PTAB’s Claim Construction Standard for IPR Proceedings

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Posted in Patent

On August 12, 2016

In a recent decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit’s ruling that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was within its authority to give a patent claim “its broadest reasonable construction” during an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding. The Court found that the PTAB was authorized to apply this standard because 35 U. S. C. §316(a)(4) granted the Patent Office authority to issue “regulations . . . establishing and governing inter partes review under this chapter.”

Brexit Raises Questions About the Future of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court

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Posted in Patent / Pharmaceuticals

On August 8, 2016

Recently, the UK voted to leave the EU. However, that has not happened yet for several reasons. The first reason is that the referendum actually needs to be voted on by Parliament, adopting the results of the referendum vote. A second reason is that withdrawal from the EU occurs when Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is enacted. Neither one of these two items has occurred. If Parliament agrees to follow the referendum outcome and votes to leave the EU, and if the UK gives notice under Article 50, then many trade agreements and treaties will need to be negotiated in a two-year period from date of notification.

Federal Circuit Overturns Supplemental Jurisdiction Over Claims of Breach of Fiduciary Duty

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Posted in Patent / Pharmaceuticals

On August 5, 2016

In a recent decision from the Federal Circuit in AngioScore, Inc. v. TriREME Medical LLC et al. the court found that a plaintiff’s claim for patent infringement and breach of fiduciary duty did not have the requisite “common nucleus of operative fact” for the district court to maintain supplemental jurisdiction over breach of fiduciary duty claims. In particular, this decision provided the Federal Circuit a rare opportunity to review the jurisdiction limits of a district court in a case involving federal patent infringement claims and state law claims for breach of fiduciary duty aiding and abetting and unfair competition by an independent director and companies he co-founded which developed a competitive product to a product marketed by the plaintiff corporation AngioScore, Inc.

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