IP Newsflash

In an order issued on April 4, 2018, Judge Lynn granted plaintiff ZitoVault’s motion for summary judgment under 35 U.S.C. 315(e)(2), holding that defendant IBM is estopped from asserting invalidity defenses based on prior art known to IBM when it filed its first petition for inter partes review.

The Supreme Court’s recent holding in TC Heartland settled several points of law: first, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) is the “sole and exclusive provision controlling venue in patent infringement actions; second, the broader venue provisions in 28 U.S.C. § 1391(c) are not applicable to patent infringement cases; and third, TC Heartland reversed the Federal Circuit’s decision that reaffirmed VE Holding and held that “the current version of § 1391 does not contain any indication that Congress intended to alter the meaning of § 1400(b) as interpreted in Fourco.” In the aftermath of TC Heartland, there have been inconsistent approaches to the question of waiver and whether the recent Supreme Court decision constitutes new law. Two such decisions are detailed, below.

On November 10, 2016, Judge David C. Godbey of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that two video upload patents were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The patents, owned by Youtoo Technologies, were asserted against Twitter, which acquired the Vine application in January 2013. Judge Godbey described the asserted patents as directed to a system of “receiving and distributing user-generated video content for distribution on television broadcasts and the Internet.”