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Case Summaries

Intellectual Property

[02/07] Adair v. Carter
On appeal a decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences holding that the appellants' single claim involved in an interference with the appellees was time-barred under 35 USC section 135(b)(1), the decision of the Board is affirmed, where: 1) to overcome a section 135(b) bar for a post-critical date claim, an applicant must show that such claim is not materially different from a pre-critical date claim present in the application or any predecessor thereto in order to obtain the benefit of the earlier filing date, and in this case the Board found material differences; 2) the Board properly presumed material differences between the plaintiffs' post- and pre-critical date claims; 3) the Board did not establish any absolute requirement that the pre-critical date claims must have been patentable to the plaintiff, and doing so would have been harmless error; and 4) the Board did not abuse its discretion in declining to consider a claim for the first time on rehearing.

[02/07] Secalt, S.A. v. Wuxi Shenxi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.
In a suit claiming that the defendant's traction hoists infringed the trade dress of the plaintiffs' traction hoist, the district court’s grant of summary judgment, its finding of exceptionality, and its award of attorney’s fees under the Lanham Act are affirmed, where the plaintiffs did not present evidence sufficient to create a triable issue as to the nonfunctionality of its claimed trade dress, but the district court's award of non-taxable costs and certain taxable costs is reversed.

[02/01] Thorner v. Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC
In a patent infringement action concerning a patent relating to a tactile feedback system for computer video games, the district court's judgment of noninfringement upon stipulation is vacated and the case remanded, where: 1) the district court improperly limited the term "attached to said pad" to mean attachment only to an external surface, and the parties based the stipulation of noninfringement on the district court's erroneous construction of this claim; and 2) the district court erred in its construction of the term "flexible."

[01/27] Krippelz v. Ford Motor Co.
In a patent infringement case involving a vehicle-mounted lamp, the district court's denial of the defendant's motion for judgment as a matter of law on invalidity is reversed, its summary judgment of infringement is vacated, and the case is remanded for entry of judgment of nonliability for the defendant, where the district court committed reversible error in its holdings that: 1) a reasonable jury could find that a competing French patent failed to teach the required "conical beam of light;" and 2) the jury could have reasonably found the French patent to lack a lamp "adjacent to the window."

[01/23] Falana v. Kent State University
In a suit against a university and inventors listed on a patent alleging that the plaintiff was an omitted co-inventor, the district court’s judgment in favor of the plaintiff as to inventorship is affirmed, where: 1) the district court did not err in construing the language of the claims; 2) error in the exclusion of certain exhibits did not result in substantial injustice and was harmless error; 3) the district court did not err in concluding that the plaintiff's contribution of the method used by the team of which he was a part for making the claimed compounds was enough of a contribution to conception to pass the threshold required for joint inventorship; and 4) the district court's exceptional case finding and award of attorney fees were not yet final and not properly before the court of appeals.

[01/20] Dealertrack, Inc. v. Huber
In a patent infringement action involving patents directed to a computer-aided method and system for processing credit applications over electronic networks, the district court's rulings on summary judgment motions are affirmed in part, vacated in part, reversed in part, and the case remanded, where: 1) the district court erred in granting summary judgment of noninfringement based on a construction of "communications medium" that carved out the Internet; 2) the court modified the claim constructions of "communications medium" and "central processing means," requiring it to vacate summary judgment of noninfringement and remand to the district court to determine infringement in the first instance applying the new constructions; 3) the district court legally erred in denying a motion for summary judgment of invalidity of certain claims for indefiniteness; 4) the district court correctly found that certain claims were patent ineligible abstract ideas.

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