Judge Gorton of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts recently entered an order granting a motion by Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (Amphastar) that bars Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Momenta) from enforcing a patent against certain drug manufacturing control processes based on the equitable doctrines of waiver and estoppel that arose form Momenta’s failure to disclose a pending patent application to the standard setting organization (SSO) United States Pharmacopeia (USP) when deliberating on a USP National Formulary (USP-NF) standard.  This case found a duty to disclose a pending patent application that “reasonably might be necessary” to practice the standard based on the participants’ understanding of the SSO’s ambiguous conflict of interest policy that required participants to disclose financial or other interests “that may result in a conflict of interest or the appearance of interest.”  This case also provides insight on tailoring equitable relief when waiver or estoppel are found: the court ruled that the patent was unenforceable against two infringing processes used by the infringed that practiced the standard, but the patent was enforceable against a third process that fell outside the standard (if the patent otherwise is valid and infringed).
Continue Reading Waiver and estoppel bar enforcement of undisclosed drug manufacturing patent (Momenta v. Amphastar)

Judge Gilstrap recently entered an Order that rejected various defenses raised by Metaswitch based on the prior patent owner’s (Nortel) activities in standards organizations CableLabs, the Internet Engineering Task Force (“IETF”) and the International Telecommunication Union (“ITU”).  The decision highlights the importance of considering the specific language of the standard setting intellectual property rights (“IPR”) policy and patent owner commitment at issue as well as the importance of showing that the standard incorporates the patented technology and is implemented in the accused infringing products.

For example, under the wording of the specific CableLabs IPR Agreement at issue, Judge Gilstrap ruled that (1) an entities’ commitment only applied to intellectual property (e.g., patents or applications) it owned at the time the entity made the commitment and did not apply to intellectual property that the entity later acquired and (2) a subsidiary’s intellectual property commitment did not obligate its parent entity.  Thus, although one of Nortel’s subsidiary’s that owned no patents participated in the CableLabs standards process, Nortel could hold (and later sell) patents relevant to the CableLabs standard without those Nortel patents being subject to the royalty-free licensing obligation that CableLab’s otherwise required of participants.

Further, Judge Gilstrap ruled that the accused infringer failed to show one or more material parts of the alleged standard setting obligation, such as showing that (i) the standard setting document at issue was actually an adopted standard subject to an obligation (e.g., not an expired draft or request for comment), (ii) the patented technology was incorporated into the standard (e.g., the patent claims actually are “essential” to the standard), and (iii) the accused products actually implement the standard and patented technology.  The latter requirement — e.g., show that the accused products implement the patented technology within the standard — can be particularly problematic, because accused infringer’s generally deny infringement (usually a first line of defense) and are reluctant to undermine that defense by arguing that the claims read onto their product in order to support a lower priority defense, such as the standard essential patent defenses raised here.

The decision also provides incremental insight into common equitable defenses raised in standard essential patent cases: laches, equitable estoppel, implied waiver, and implied license.  In this case, the circumstances that lead to a failure to establish breach of an expressed standard setting commitment also doomed the equitable defenses as well.  Perhaps this is not too surprising, because equity generally does not step-in when there is an adequate remedy at law–e.g., enforcement of a contractual obligation that sets the rights, obligations and expectations of the parties.  This further bolsters the importance of the language used in the specific standard setting IPR policy and specific patent owner commitment at issue when determining rights and obligations under standard essential patents subject to a standard setting obligation.
Continue Reading Judge Gilstrap rejects Metaswitch’s SEP defenses based on Nortel participation in CableLabs, IETF and ITU standards bodies (Genband v. Metaswitch)

usbIt’s no surprise that most of the attention being paid to standard-essential patent issues is focused on the companies involved in the “smartphone wars” — Motorola, Microsoft, Apple. Samsung, etc.  But while these consumer product companies are of course affected by issues involving standard-essential patents, so too are their component suppliers.  A lawsuit filed this past fall in the Southern District of New York by Lotes Co. against Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Foxconn over SEP issues relating to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0 standard is a great example of this.  Here, we attempt to provide a brief overview of the issues in the Lotes-Hon Hai case.
Continue Reading Catching up on…Lotes v. Foxconn RAND/antitrust dispute over USB 3.0 standard-essential patents