Mealey's Patents : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Patents

August 05, 2025
Federal Circuit: Wrong Construction Of ‘Composition’ Causes Erroneous Injunction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a Pennsylvania federal judge improperly imported a claim limitation into a term when considering a preliminary injunction in a patent infringement dispute over the active ingredients in pest control products.
August 04, 2025
Federal Circuit Won’t Rethink Groupon’s Estoppel Arguments, Despite Dissent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The full Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 1 denied Groupon Inc.’s petition for either en banc or panel rehearing, rejecting the company’s contention that an appeals court panel erred when it held that a patent owner’s infringement claims in a Delaware federal court were not estopped by a previous decision by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB); in a dissenting opinion, two circuit judges said that the opinion cannot be squared with the circuit’s precedent.
August 01, 2025
Wrong Claim Construction Led To Erroneous JMOL For Comcast, Federal Circuit Holds

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a Florida federal judge’s judgment of noninfringement in favor of Comcast Cable Communications Inc. in a patent infringement dispute, agreeing with a patent holder that the finding was based on an erroneous claim construction in a dispute over a patent describing a digital program guide for televisions.
August 01, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity Of Tech Company’s Lens Patent Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that all challenged claims in a company’s patent describing a lens for imaging for mobile devices were unpatentable as obvious, finding that substantial evidence supported the finding that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSA) would be motivated to combine prior art references.
July 31, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Obviousness In Processing Patent IPR Sought By Netflix

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel agreed that Netflix Inc. successfully showed that multiple claims of a patent describing a distributed processing system were invalid as obvious during an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding, affirming the findings of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
July 30, 2025
Federal Circuit Orders New Trial On Validity, Damages In Lighting Patent Fight

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Texas wrongly prevented a defendant lighting company from presenting evidence of the invalidity of a plaintiff patent holder’s lighting patents, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, finding that the error makes a new trial on invalidity and damages necessary.
July 29, 2025
Federal Circuit Agrees With DocuSign On Invalidity Of Security Patent Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said it saw no errors in the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that DocuSign Inc. successfully showed that all challenged claims in web security patents were unpatentable as obvious in three separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, rejecting the appellant inventor’s contention that PTAB’s findings stemmed from an incorrect claim construction.
July 28, 2025
Federal Circuit Finds No Jurisdiction Over Patent Royalty Row, Transfers Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held July 25 that it lacks jurisdiction to consider a medicine maker’s request for changes to an arbitration award requiring royalty payments to another company for a patented active ingredient because the issues on appeal do not sound in patent law, transferring the case to the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
July 28, 2025
Xerox Again Sees Patent Invalidation Affirmed By Federal Circuit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) invalidation of all claims in a patent held by Xerox Inc. describing a method of content delivering content to users, agreeing with the PTAB’s claim construction that all parties agreed would be dispositive if upheld.
July 28, 2025
On Remand From 9th Circuit, Judge Dismisses FCA Suit Against Drugmakers

SAN FRANCISCO — On remand from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and after the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari, a California federal judge dismissed without prejudice a qui tam suit accusing pharmaceutical companies of violating the False Claims Act (FCA) and related state laws by artificially inflating drug prices, finding that dismissal “is warranted” because the second amended complaint “lumps” the companies “together in an undifferentiated mass” regarding the alleged fraud.
July 25, 2025
Federal Circuit OKs Judgment On Patent, Copyright, Other Claims On Steel Brace

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A steel company failed to show that a construction company infringed its patent describing a type of bracing for preventing seismic damage to buildings, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, affirming a Utah federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in the construction company’s favor.
July 24, 2025
Federal Circuit: PTAB Right To Reject Interference Estoppel In Gambling IPR

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that there was no error in the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that an appellant patent owner’s patent for an invention that applied to transfers of data between gaming machines was invalid as obvious; the panel also found “no shenanigans” in the decision not to apply interference estoppel.
July 24, 2025
Federal Circuit Won’t Rethink AI Patent Eligibility 1st Impression Decision

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The full Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 23 denied a machine learning patent holder’s petition for panel or en banc rehearing, leaving in place an April panel decision on a matter of first impression that affirmed the invalidation of the patents for describing the abstract concept of machine learning without pointing to specific improvements.
July 22, 2025
Federal Circuit Reverses Patent, Trademark Infringement Finding In Sweatshirt Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed an Arizona federal jury’s verdict in a design patent and trademark infringement dispute related to oversized sweatshirts, holding that substantial evidence does not support the jury’s finding that a manufacturer infringed another entity’s trademarks.
July 21, 2025
Judge Tosses AI Patent Inventorship Claims For Lack Of Jurisdiction

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge dismissed an artificial intelligence (AI) data scientist’s complaint against his former employer, an industrial supplier, seeking the invalidation of patents for which he claimed to be the inventor, noting that the scientist appeared to cite a nonexistent subsection of the Patent Act and sought relief that was not possible.
July 21, 2025
Judge: No Juror Could Find Infringement In Metrology Tech Suit

BOSTON — A federal judge in Massachusetts granted summary judgment in favor of a defendant semiconductor manufacturer, holding that “no reasonable juror” would find that its use of another company’s product infringed a nonpracticing plaintiff entity’s patent on a piece of metrology filtering technology.
July 17, 2025
Texas Federal Judge: Patents Asserted Against Cisco Invalid As Abstract

WACO, Texas — A Texas federal judge who found that Cisco Systems Inc. did not infringe multiple claims of a computer system patent before a jury began deliberations said in a July 16 opinion that two remaining patents at issue are invalid as being directed at an abstract concept without a necessary transformative inventive idea added to it.
July 17, 2025
Judge Says AI Photo Analysis Patent Not Abstract Per Alice Test

WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware federal judge rejected a defendant artificial intelligence company’s argument that the machine learning patents it is accused of infringing are invalid as abstract, agreeing with the insurance company patent holder that “the patents recite the patent-eligible arrangement of two independently trained classifiers to analyze property characteristics and conditions.”
July 16, 2025
Judge Dismisses Patent Claims Against DraftKings, But Not FanDuel

TRENTON, N.J. — In a pair of opinions issued on the same day, a New Jersey federal judge found that sports betting company DraftKings Inc. and a related entity successfully showed that a technology company failed to substantiate its patent infringement claims against the sportsbook, while separately finding that FanDuel Inc. failed to show that patents held by the same company were invalid as abstract.
July 15, 2025
Federal Circuit Finds No Error In AAPA Use In PTAB Catheter Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) should have found all claims of a patent related to a cardiovascular catheter device to be unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held July 14, affirming the bulk of the board’s findings but reversing as to a single claim PTAB did not invalidate.
July 15, 2025
Judge Sanctions IP Lawyer For Giving Netflix Info To 3rd Party In Patent Row

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge ordered sanctions against an attorney from Ramey LLP who formerly represented a pro se plaintiff in a patent infringement dispute brought against Netflix Inc., holding that the attorney inappropriately shared discovery information with a third party the court previously blocked from being joined to the litigation.
July 11, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity Of Smart HVAC System Patent Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed decisions by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated patents related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) held by EcoFactor Inc. in a series of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings brought by Google LLC, in the latest step in the battle between the companies over smart thermostat technologies.
July 10, 2025
Federal Circuit Again Finds For Janssen On Mental Health Drug Patent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New Jersey federal judge’s finding that two appellant medicine makers failed to show that claims in a patent related to dosing regimens for an injectable schizophrenia treatment were invalid as obvious, holding that it saw no error in the judge’s analysis of the motivation to combine prior art references.
July 09, 2025
Device Maker Tells High Court Shortened Discovery Timeline Tainted Patent Trial

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A medical product company tells the U.S. Supreme Court that a North Carolina federal court violated its due process rights by changing both the time to trial and the time for discovery in a patent infringement case for which the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has already ordered a new trial.
July 08, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Cisco’s Noninfringement Of Server Management Patent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 7 affirmed a Massachusetts federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement on some patent counts and a jury’s verdict of noninfringement on others, agreeing that Egenera Inc. failed to show that Cisco Systems Inc. infringed a patent on a server management system.