Patent News Grab–Bag

Some news of note for this Valentine’s Day week: N.D. Cal. Orders Early Damages Disclosures: The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has amended its local patent rules to require the parties to (1) provide the court with a good–faith (non–binding) estimate of the damages range expected for the case at the...

Timing Is Everything: Alice in East Texas (Again)

Well, we warned you that Alice v. CLS Bank was going to remain a hot topic in 2016. Two more data points to support that theory have emerged, each of which, in a different way, relates to the proper timing of a judicial decision on the legal question of whether a patent’s claims are written...

Digital Downloads Aren’t “Articles”; New Rules For Alice In East Texas

A couple more newsworthy items to report on this week: * In a closely watched case in the Federal Circuit, a split panel of that court has held that the International Trade Commission does not have jurisdiction to protect against alleged patent infringement based on “importation” by digital download. Over a vigorous dissent from Judge...

Letter Request Requirement in East Texas Takes An Absurdist Turn

We’ve written before about the unique requirement some judges in the Eastern District of Texas impose on accused infringers, requiring them to obtain leave of court before filing a motion testing the patent–eligibility of an asserted patent under Alice v. CLS Bank. This requirement makes it harder for accused infringers to get a dispositive issue...

Alice Needs A Judicial Visa To Enter East Texas

East Texas continues to stand out among federal judicial districts for its (contrarian) approach to patent cases. Where the judges in other judicial districts have found the Supreme Court opinion in Alice v. CLS Bank a useful tool to use early in cases to weed out patents that shouldn’t have been granted—you can see a...

Federal Circuit Acknowledges That, Yes, Alice Did Change The Game

The yo–yo of Ultramercial v. Hulu has come to rest at last, and should prove to any doubters that the Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank opinion has changed the patent litigation game. The Ultramercial case has been adrift in cross–currents between the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court for years now. In 2010, the...