Category: Litigation
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Patent Owner Stay Motion Successful Based on Defendants’ Reexam Requests Filed on Eve of Markman
In Fifth Market, Inc. v. CME Group Inc, et al., (1-08-cv-00520, D. Del), the Patent Owner/Plaintiff (Fifth Market, Inc.) sued multiple Defendants on two patents (U.S. Pat. No. 6,418,419 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,024,387) in 2008. Three amended complaints were subsequently filed, the last one on January 10, 2011. The Defendants answered on February 7,…
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Fractus SA Gets $23M Verdict Against Samsung in Antenna Patent Litigation
In Fractus, S.A. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al. (6:09-CV-203, EDTX), a jury gave a verdict of patent infringement of four different patents owned by Fractus S.A. against Samsung to the tune of $23,129,321 in damages. The jury found that Fractus proved the infringement was willful by clear and convincing evidence. The Verdict Form provides details as to…
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TiVo’s Reexamination Strategy Helps Win a Stay in the Northern District of California
The chronology of the dispute between TiVo, AT&T and Microsoft is complex and so are the digital video recorder (DVR) technologies covered in the patents that are asserted. All of these complexities seemed to weigh in favor of a stay in the present case. Some background is necessary to understand these complexities. Litigation Background On August…
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Lockwood Cert Petition Seeks Clarification of Redress for Alleged “Sham” Reexamination Request
In a Petition for Writ of Certiorari dated April 28, 2011, inventor Lawrence B. Lockwood and his company, PanIP, LLC, requested review of the judgment of the Federal Circuit denying its petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc. (The underlying order of the Court of Appeals was issued Nov. 15, 2010, and is reprinted at Lockwood v.…
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Can Post Grant Review Enhance Patent Quality?
We have all heard about the new post grant review (PGR) aspect of the patent reform legislation. It is supposed to provide a mechanism for review of the patent initiated in the first year of the patent’s issue. Please indulge me for a bit as I explore what this may mean for the patent system as a…
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Petition Granted for Rehearing en banc of Akamai Technologies v. Limelight Networks
On April 20, 2011, the Federal Circuit granted the petition by Akamai Technologies for rehearing en banc its appeal in Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc. The order vacated the earlier opinion of December 20, 2010. The order includes a request to file new briefs addressing this question: If separate entities each perform separate…
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Federal Circuit Decision in In re Tanaka
You might recall that we discussed the BPAI decision in In re Yasuhito Tanaka in an earlier post. On April 15, the Federal Circuit reversed the BPAI decision and remanded the matter for further proceedings in accordance with the opinion. The Federal Circuit held that a patent owner that retains original patent claims and adds new narrower claims in…
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Patent Owner Reexamination Requests with Parallel Litigation
You have worked hard and obtained a patent for your company. You do your homework and believe that your competitor is infringing your patent. You ultimately engage the help of a litigation team and sue the competitor for patent infringement. But your competitor is now a defendant and responds with allegations of invalidity based on publication…
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More on Fractus Reexaminations
My earlier post had an incomplete list of the Fractus reexaminations. A better compilation is found in a document titled: Supplemental Notification of Concurrent Proceedings Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. §1.985 which is found in Reexam Control No. 95/001,414 (see item dated January 14, 2011 on Public PAIR at www.uspto.gov ). The list of reexaminations is substantial and…
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Factors in Deciding Motions to Stay Litigation Pending Reexamination
If a patent is in reexamination at the outset of a patent infringement action, there is a possibility of obtaining a stay from the district court. But motions to stay are not always successful, and they are decided after consideration of several factors. One case that demonstrates some of the factors in deciding whether to…