Federal Circuit Rejects Design Patent Claim Construction That Eliminates Structural Elements That Were Not “Purely Functional”

A magistrate judge in the District of Delaware issued a Report and Recommendation, that found the sole asserted claim was a “single means” claim and therefore invalid for lack of enablement. In reaching that conclusion, the magistrate judge rejected the patentee’s argument that the preamble of the claim disclosed a second element that satisfied the combination requirement of Section 112, paragraph 6 because the preamble simply recited a descriptor of the very apparatus that was the subject of the means-plus-function limitation in the body of the claim. The district court judge presiding over this case has scheduled a hearing to review the magistrate’s ruling.

The Federal Circuit has affirmed the PTAB’s determination that a patent challenger did not show the challenged claims were unpatentable for obviousness. The Federal Circuit concluded that substantial evidence, which included expert testimony, showed there was no motivation to combine the references.

In a recent order addressing four IPR proceedings, the PTAB exercised its inherent authority under 37 C.F.R. § 42.5(a) to sua sponte authorize post-hearing discovery on a potentially dispositive privity issue. The order followed a Director review decision that vacated and remanded earlier IPRs involving the same parties, patent family, and privity issue. 

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied institution of an inter partes review petition in part because it determined that a patent reference was not prior art under the common ownership exception of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(c)(1).

In considering a motion to dismiss infringement claims for two related patents, the District of Massachusetts recently held that pre-suit knowledge of a “parent” patent, without more, is insufficient to establish pre-suit knowledge of the “child” patent for purposes of indirect and willful infringement.

Following a jury verdict finding trade secret misappropriation, the District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted-in-part a plaintiff’s motion for a permanent injunction to prohibit defendants from using plaintiff’s trade secrets. The district court further required defendants to reassign to plaintiff patents and patent applications that disclosed or were derived from plaintiff’s trade secrets as part of its equitable relief.

In ruling on a recent motion to strike, a judge in the Eastern District of Texas permitted a damages expert to rely on a damages theory based on defendant’s “avoided costs,” holding that this theory did not run afoul of the “entire market value rule.”

The Federal Circuit recently vacated a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board after concluding that the board’s analysis of licensing evidence offered as a secondary consideration of nonobviousness constituted legal error and was not supported by substantial evidence. According to the court, the board applied a more exacting and improperly heightened nexus standard than is required by law for license evidence.