Supreme Court Affirms Patent Office Procedures For Inter Partes Review

Although the political winds in the Senate continue to blow against the confirmation of a ninth justice, the oddities of an eight–person Supreme Court have not prevented the court from deciding patent cases in the past week. Today brings the opinion of the Court in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee, in which the high court...

Supreme Court Rejects “Unduly Rigid” Federal Circuit Test For Enhanced Damages

There is a certain Groundhog Day–effect to many recent Supreme Court patent cases. The Supreme Court takes up a case challenging a legal test the Federal Circuit has created, rejects that test, and sends the case back to the lower court with an admonition not to be too rigid in its approach. In so doing,...

Arbitration Redux: Supreme Court Speaks Again

Just seven days after my last blog post on arbitration clauses, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia finding, yet again, that a class action waiver provision was enforceable against a consumer.  Although the decision turned on a rather nuanced question of contract interpretation, it serves as a powerful reminder of...

Independence Day Round–Up

A post–4th–of–July review of recent developments in patent litigation: Supreme Court declares independence from patent cases. As the Supreme Court closed out a memorable 2014 term, we note that the Court has not accepted any patent cases for its 2015 term. Although there are a few cert. petitions percolating, it appears that patent law will...

Supreme Court Sides With Patent–Asserter In Commil v. Cisco

A divided Supreme Court held today in Commil v. Cisco that an accused infringer’s good–faith belief in the invalidity of a patent asserted against it is not a defense to an allegation of induced infringement. The opinion is a victory for the patent–assertion entity who sued Cisco, and another Supreme Court defeat for the Federal...

Supreme Court To Decide If You Have To Know You Are Inducing Patent Infringement To Knowingly Induce Patent Infringement

At the end of this month, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in its next big patent case, Commil v. Cisco. The question for decision relates to induced patent infringement, and whether an accused infringer who believes in good faith that the patent asserted against it is invalid can rely on that belief to...

Teva for Two: Federal Circuit Doubles Up On De Novo Review

In Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Sandoz, the Supreme Court said that in patent cases, like any other civil case, the court of appeals must show deference to the trial court’s findings of fact, even if those findings relate to the legal issue of the proper construction of claim language in a patent. In reporting on that...

Nothing Special About A Specialty Court

The Supreme Court reminded everyone, once again, that just because patent cases are heard by a special court of appeals, they are not governed by special rules that apply only to patent cases. In Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., the Court ruled 7–2 that when there are subsidiary factual issues in claim construction,...

Direct Marketing Association Oral Argument Update

Oral argument in the case of Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl occurred on December 8, 2014.   For  readers who are following the case, we thought it would be useful not only to recap some of the high points of the argument, but also to provide a list of resources and press reactions.  Both 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...