On July 2, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a mandate in Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., in yet another post-SAS determination. Before a panel composed of Judges Moore, Wallach, and Taranto, issued the order remanding the case back to the PTAB to address all claims and grounds originally raised in …
Month: July 2018
CannabIP: U.S. Patent No. 9,938,663 B2
U.S. Patent No. 9,938,663 B2 issued on April 10, 2018, for “Methods for Producing Raw Materials from Plant Biomass,” to applicant 9Fiber, Inc., of Silver Spring, Maryland, and inventor Adam Powars, of Denver, Colorado. The claims are directed to a new method for recycling raw plant materials. The specific method is decortication, degumming, decontamination, whitening, …
Fed Circuit Watch: Every Limitation Required for Infringement-by-Manufacture
In FastShip, LLC v. United States,[1] the patented Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) was allegedly infringed. This case is interesting, in part because the defendant was the U.S. Government, and it is a patent infringement suit which arrived to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by way of the Court of Federal Claims (CFC). …
Fed Circuit Watch: No Challenge to Partial Institution Raises No SAS Issue
On June 7, 2018, the Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit handed down PGS Geophysical AS v. Iancu,[1] which has a tangential relationship to the WesternGeco LLC, of the recent WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. [2] recently decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. This case is one of several transition cases pending with the …
Second Circuit Will Not Yet Hear Embedded Tweet Appeal
In a somewhat unsurprising move, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied an interlocutory appeal (28 U.S.C. §1292) requested by publisher defendants in Heavy, Inc. v. Goldman.[1] The order can be found here 18-910_goldman-CA2_intapp_dend. As discussed in an earlier posting on this blog, the district court case, Goldman v. Breitbart News Network, LLC, held …
SCOTUS Watch: Supreme Court to Hear Case of What “Registration” Means
On June 28, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for writ of certiorari in Fourth Estate Pub. Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC. The justices took up the case to resolve a split in the circuits surrounding the definition of “registration” within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. §411(a), the copyright infringement statute. Currently, the …
Fed Circuit Watch: PTAB Invalidity Collaterally Estops Assertion of Those Claims in Later Appellate Case
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit waded into a convoluted case involving patents directed to X-Y chromosome sorting techniques for selective breeding in livestock. This case is XY, LLC v. Trans Ova Genetics, L.C.,[1] and the opinion was issued on May 23, 2018. Topically, the case deals with breach of contract, antitrust, and …
CannabIP: U.S. Patent No. 9,937,147 B2
U.S. Patent No. 9,937,147 B2 issued on April 10, 2018, for “Edible Base Product Composition,” to applicant NBDD, Inc., and inventor Doug DeGeeter, of San Francisco, California. The claims are directed to an edible product containing concentrates of starch, specifically rice, lipid, specifically tapioca maltodextrin, and at least 33% by weight a concentrate containing a …
Fed Circuit Watch: Walker Process Case Denied En Banc Review
On June 15, 2018, an expanded panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied petitions for rehearing and rehearing en banc in a per curiam order. This case is Xitronix Corp. v. KLA-Tencor Corp.,[1] and the enlarged panel was composed of Chief Judge Prost, and Judges Newman, Lourie, Mayer, Dyk, Moore, O’Malley, …
SCOTUS Watch: Patent Damages Extends to Foreign Lost Profits
On June 22, 2018, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case, WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp.,[1] which will change the landscape for patent damages because foreign lost profits can now be assessed in patent infringement judgments. The facts are as follows. WesternGeco owns four patents directed to systems for ocean …