Federal Circuit

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Today the Federal Circuit vacated Judge Selna’s bench trial decision in the much-watched TCL v. Ericsson case, ruling that Ericsson has the right to a jury trial to  determine  compensation for past infringement of Ericsson’s standard essential patents (SEPs) under the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  So this case involving a FRAND computation method…

Today the Federal Circuit (Renya, Bryson and Hughes) ruled that implied waiver may apply where the prior owner of a U.S. patent had a duty to disclose a related foreign patent application to ETSI even though ETSI had rejected that prior patent owner’s proposed contribution to the standard.  This decision provides insight into several areas, including:

  • Applying the equitable doctrine of implied waiver to the duty to disclose intellectual property rights (IPR) to standard setting bodies.  Among other things, the decision indicates that there may not be a requirement to show reliance on the implied waiver.
  • The importance of looking to the specific standard setting body’s IPR Policy at issue and providing evidence for interpreting that policy.
  • The difference between disclosing patents that “may be” essential to the standard and a FRAND commitment that arises because the patent “actually is” essential to the standard.
  • Failure to disclose is not a “gotcha’” defense; rather, you must show that the patent owner obtained some unfair advantage by its misconduct in not disclosing the patent.

As with many decisions, this case is fairly case-specific as far as interpretation of the ETSI IPR Policy.  Only the  patent challenger (Apple) provided testimony on interpretation of the ETSI Policy without any rebuttal evidence beyond the language of the IPR Policy itself.  The Federal Circuit indicated that its decision was based on the specific record evidence–and lack of evidence–before it.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit provides guidance on implied waiver defense applied to failure to disclose foreign patent application to SDO (Core Wireless v. Apple)

The Federal Circuit’s recent Exmark v. Briggs-Stratton decision further confirms that there is no categorical rule about selecting a royalty base when litigating a reasonable royalty in order to apportion value to the patented invention, but that “apportionment can be addressed in a variety of ways … [s]o long as [the patent owner] adequately and reliably apportions between the improved and conventional features” of the accused product.  Thus, in this case, the Federal Circuit ruled that the patent owner properly could use the entire lawn mower as the royalty base and was not limited to the innovative baffle component of the lawn mower as a royalty base.  This case continues the clarification made in the Federal Circuit’s CSIRO decision involving standard essential patents that recognized that “adaptability [in determining patent damages] is necessary because different cases present different facts” and rejected as “untenable” the argument that every damages model must start with the smallest salable patent practicing unit (SSPPU) (see our Dec. 3, 2015 post).

A persistent dispute in the standard essential patent (SEP) community is whether a patent owner may license its SEPs based on the sales price of the end product or if the patent owner must license its SEPs based on the sales price of a component within that end product (e.g., the smallest salable patent practicing unit or SSPPU).  The Federal Circuit’s Ericsson v. D-Link decision explained that the SSPPU theory was based on an evidentiary principle to avoid confusing jury’s in U.S. patent damages litigation (see our December 5, 2014 post). Yet some continued to claim that the SSPPU principle was a substantive rule of law required in all circumstances, including outside of litigation in private negotiations for SEP licenses.  The Federal Circuit’s CSIRO decision later held it was “untenable” to argue that all damages methodologies must start with the SSPPU (see our December 3, 2015 post).  Yet the debate somehow continued.  The Federal Circuit’s Exmark decision here may finally settle and dispel arguments that the royalty base cannot be the end product, but must be the SSPPU.  But we will see …
Continue Reading Federal Circuit confirms flexibility in determining royalty base (Exmark v. Briggs & Stratton)

Today, the Federal Circuit issued a decision en banc that reversed a three-judge panel decision because it erroneously had relied on evidence outside of the record from the trial court below to change the claim construction and hold claims invalid on obviousness grounds.  This decision may lead to more deference to the district court and increase the likelihood that a district court’s decision on claim construction, infringement or validity will survive appellate review.   But the decision’s ambiguous procedural posture may lead to confusion and litigants debating what portions of the decision are cloaked with the binding deference due an en banc decision of the court.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit en banc decision limits appellate review to trial court record (Apple v. Samsung)

Today, in The Medicines Co. v. Hospira, the Federal Circuit en banc unanimously ruled that “a contract manufacturer’s sale to the inventor of manufacturing services where neither title to the embodiments nor the right to market the same passes to the supplier does not constitute an invalidating sale under § 102(b).”

This case provides a good review of the on-sale bar and circumstances that may or may not constitute a sale that would trigger it.  The decision is based on § 102(b) as it existed before amendment in 2011 under the America Invents Act (AIA); but the decision may guide applying the on-sale bar under AIA § 102(a)(1) to patents that are subject to the amended provision–i.e., patents’ whose claims have an effective filing date on or after March 16, 2013.
Continue Reading En banc Federal Circuit clarifies what constitutes a “sale” triggering the on-sale bar (MedCo v. Hospira)

Last week, the Federal Circuit en banc ruled that the sale of a product abroad by a U.S. patent holder (or others) does not exhaust the patent owner’s U.S. patent rights, such as the right to exclude sale or importation of that product within the United States.  Further, the Federal Circuit ruled that, when a U.S. patent holder sells a product with expressed restrictions on resale or reuse of that product, the patent exhaustion doctrine does not preclude the patent owner from exercising its right to exclude resale or reuse of that product.  The Federal Circuit summarized its ruling as follows:

We hold that, when a patentee sells a patented article under otherwise-proper restrictions on resale and reuse communicated to the buyer at the time of the sale, the patentee does not confer authority on the buyer to engage in the prohibited resale or reuse.  The patentee does not exhaust its § 271 rights to charge the buyer who engages in those acts–or downstream buyers having knowledge of the restrictions–with infringement.  We also hold that a foreign sale of a U.S.-patented article, when made by or with the approval of the U.S. patentee, does not exhaust the patentee’s U.S. patent rights in the article sold, even when no reservation of rights accompanies the sale.  Loss of U.S. patent rights based on a foreign sale remains a matter of express or implied license.

This is a lengthy decision that provides insight into the Federal Circuit’s view of not only the patent exhaustion doctrine, but the fundamental patent right to exclude and extraterritorial limits that preclude U.S. law from reaching into other countries and, importantly, that precludes laws of other country’s from limiting U.S. patent rights.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit rules sale abroad does not exhaust U.S. patent rights (Lexmark v. Impression)

Last week, the Federal Circuit denied en banc review by the entire court of the three-judge panel decision in the Apple v. Samsung case that had revived the ability to obtain injunctive relief against multiple component products, such as smartphones (see our Sep. 17, 2015 post).  In doing so, the original three-judge panel (Prost, Moore and Reyna) issued an Order that withdrew their original opinion and issued a revised opinion that focuses on the patented feature being “one of several [features] that cause consumers to make their purchasing decision,” rather than the patented feature having to be “the exclusive or significant driver of customer demand” as prior decisions had intimated.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit revised injunction decision to emphasize patented feature being one of several that drive purchasing decision (Apple v. Samsung)

Today, a three-judge Federal Circuit panel (Prost (author),  Dyk and Hughes) issued its awaited decision in CSIRO v. Cisco that agreed-in-part and disagreed-in-part with Judge Davis’ damages award based on patents alleged to be essential to the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard, but which patents did not have any FRAND or other standard-setting obligation (see our July 28, 2014 post on Judge Davis’ decision).  This is an important decision that provides incremental insight into proving and determining a reasonable royalty for a standard essential patent, which includes further insight into the Federal Circuit’s first decision on this issue a year ago in Ericsson v. D-Link that involved a standard essential patent that did have a FRAND obligation under the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard (see our Dec. 5, 2014 post on the Ericsson v. D-Link decision).

This is an important decision to read directly to catch all the nuances and import of the decision, and the incremental guidance it provides in determining a royalty rate as a matter of patent damages law for past infringement of a patent that is essential to a standard.  A few particularly important points come from the decision.

First, the Federal Circuit soundly rejected as “untenable” the accused infringer’s argument that there is a “rule” that all patent damages methodologies always must start out using the smallest salable patent-practicing unit.  The smallest salable patent practicing unit is a principle that can aid courts to determine if a damages expert’s methodology reliably apportions to the patent only the value that the patented technology provides to the infringing product and not other unpatented features.  But it is not the only approach that may be considered, and different cases present different factual circumstances that could lend themselves to different reliable methodologies.  For example, damages methodologies properly may rely on real-world comparable licenses to reliably apportion value to the patented technology, whether the royalties are based on end products or components thereof.  This decision may very well put to rest arguments that there is some “rule” requiring use of the smallest salable patent-practicing unit or that there is any problem per se in royalties being based on the end product rather than its components.

Second, the Federal Circuit clarified that the need to apportion the value of the patented technology from the value of standardization applies whether or not a standard essential patent is subject to a FRAND or other standard setting obligation.  This is based on the long-standing, fundamental principal that statutory damages for infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 284 must be based on the value of the patented invention and not other unpatented features, whether that’s other unpatented technology in an infringing  product or the value of the patent being essential to a standard.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit provides guidance on royalty determination for standard essential patents (CSIRO v. Cisco)

Today, a divided three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit (Prost, O’Malley concurring and Newman dissenting) ruled that the U.S. International Trade Commission’s (ITC) authority to provide remedies for unfair acts involving importation of “articles” does not extend to electronic transmission of digital data into the United States.  In addition to its impact on the ITC’s…

Today, in SCA v. First Quality, the Federal Circuit sitting en banc ruled that the equitable doctrine of laches remains a valid defense in patent infringement actions notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Petrella v. MGM, 134 S. Ct. 1962 (2014), that precludes laches as a defense for copyrights.  This decision…