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Apportionment Unnecessary When Royalty Is Based on Comparable License

by | Dec 3, 2020 |

Rejecting a defendant’s request for a new trial on a variety of grounds, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a damages award and explained that apportionment was unnecessary because a sufficiently comparable license was used to determine the appropriate royalty. Vectura Ltd. v. GlaxoSmithKline LLC et al., Case No. 20-1054 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 19, 2020) (Prost, C.J.)

Vectura owns a patent directed to the production of composite active particles for use in pulmonary administration, such as in dry-powder inhalers. Vectura filed a lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) alleging infringement of the patent by GSK’s Ellipta-brand inhalers. At trial, a jury found the patent valid and infringed, and awarded $90 million in damages. After GSK’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on infringement was denied, GSK appealed.

The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting all of GSK’s arguments. The Court rejected GSK’s argument that, based on a claim construction issue, it was entitled to JMOL of non-infringement. The asserted claims of the patent related to “composite active particles” made up of particulate additive material (magnesium stearate) on the surface of a particle of active material, used to promote the dispersion of these particles (in, e.g., inhalers). GSK argued that there was no substantial evidence of improved dispersion because Vectura’s scientific test was technically defective. The Court concluded that this test “generally supported” Vectura’s view and that, in any event, Vectura had provided other evidence—including GSK’s own documents—that the accused inhalers demonstrated improved dispersion.

The Federal Circuit also rejected GSK’s argument that the district court had erroneously construed the claim term “composite active particles” to mean “[a] single particulate entit[y/ies] made up of a particle of active material to which one or more particles of additive material are fixed such that the active and additive particles do not separate in the airstream.” GSK argued that this term required use of the “high energy milling” process referred to in the specification of the patent, but the Federal Circuit disagreed, stating that “[a]lthough the [asserted] patent contains a few statements suggesting that its high-energy milling is required . . . those statements are outweighed by the numerous statements indicating that high-energy milling is merely a preferred process.”

The Federal Circuit further rejected GSK’s argument that Vectura’s damages theory was deficient. Vectura’s damages theory was based on a 2010 license between the parties relating to highly comparable technology. GSK argued that Vectura’s damages theory simply adopted the royalty rate from this prior license wholesale and failed to “show that the patented . . . mixtures drove consumer demand for the accused inhalers before presenting a damages theory based on the entire market value of the accused inhalers.” The Court noted that the case presented a “rather unusual circumstance” in that, while apportionment is ordinarily required where an entire-market-value royalty base is inappropriate, “when a sufficiently comparable license is used as the basis for determining the appropriate royalty, further apportionment may not necessarily be required.” The Court concluded that this was “one [...]

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“Gradual” and “Continuous” Includes Step-Wise

by | Nov 19, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a priority decision in favor of the senior party, upholding a claim construction that was based upon a verbatim definition set forth in the patent specification of the application from which the count in interference was copied. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. University of Wyoming Research Corp., Case No. 19-1530 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 4, 2020) (Schall, J.) (Newman, J., dissenting).

Wyoming Research provoked a patent interference proceeding by copying into its pending application a claim from Chevron’s pending patent application. Under the now-discontinued interference statute, the patent for an invention claimed by more than one party was awarded to the first-to-invent party. If the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board)determined there was an interference in fact—that is, two patent applications claimed the same subject matter—then the Board could proceed to determine priority of inventorship. A finding of interference in fact required the copying party’s patent specification to contain adequate written description and enablement to support the copied claim.

The copied claim was directed to a method of fractioning asphaltenes from crude oil. The technology used a mobile phase into which an alkane solvent was introduced and its concentration “gradually and continuously” changed over time, and the resulting eluted fractions were analyzed. The disputed claim limitation was: “gradually and continuously changing the alkane mobile phase solvent to a final mobile phase solvent.”

Chevron argued that “gradually and continuously changing” referred to the act of feeding alkane mobile phase solvent into the inlet of the column. Relying on intrinsic evidence, the Board instead adopted Wyoming’s construction, concluding that the limitation’s “gradually and continuously changing” referred to the change of solvents in the column and not to changes at the inlet to the column. The distinction was important because at the inlet, the Wyoming invention introduced solvent in a step-wise manner. The parties agreed that Wyoming’s specification supported only the construction adopted by Board, and Wyoming was declared to be the senior party for the priority contest.

Because Chevron had filed a priority statement that indicated that its earliest corroborated conception coupled with diligence date was later than Wyoming’s priority date, the Board determined that Chevron was unable to prevail on priority and entered judgment in favor of Wyoming. Chevron appealed.

On appeal, Chevron argued that the Board’s construction was inconsistent with Chevron’s patent specification. Chevron contended that its application disclosed that the solvent was “gradually and continuously” changed at the column’s inlet and that the Board’s construction rendered the limitation meaningless because it encompassed even “sudden, abrupt immediate solvent switches.”

The Court affirmed the Board’s construction, holding that the broadest reasonable construction of “gradually and continuously changing” did not require a change of solvents at the column inlet. The Court reasoned that the Board’s construction was consistent, and indeed tracked verbatim, with the Chevron application’s express definition of “gradually.” While the Court acknowledged that certain examples in the Chevron application illustrated that one way to implement a “gradual and continuous change” of the [...]

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Size Matters in Obviousness Analysis

by | Oct 29, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) decisions, finding that the Board erred in its construction of certain claim terms relating to an artificial heart valve that does not require removal of the damaged native heart valve. St. Jude Medical, LLC v. Snyders Heart Valve LLC, Case Nos. 19-2108, -2109, -2140 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 15, 2020) (Taranto, J.).

St. Jude filed two petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of a patent for an artificial heart valve and a system for inserting the valve. Both petitions were instituted by the Board and resulted in final written decisions. In the first decision, the Board found that St. Jude failed to establish unpatentability of the challenged claims, rejecting St. Jude’s contention that all challenged claims were anticipated by and obvious over the Leonhardt prior art reference. In the second decision, the Board found that certain claims were anticipated by the Bessler prior art reference, but rejected St. Jude’s contentions as to all other claims. St. Jude appealed, arguing that the Board erred in the first decision by erroneously construing the term “band” and erred in the second decision by finding that St. Jude failed to prove that a skilled artisan would have made a particular combination of Bessler and the Johnson prior art. Snyders cross-appealed in the second decision as to the claims the Board found were anticipated by Bessler.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s conclusions in the first decision, finding that not only was the Board’s construction of the term “band” proper, but that it was actually broader than St. Jude’s proposed construction—and that St. Jude expressly accepted the Board’s construction. The Board construed the heart valve band to mean “a structure generally in the shape of a closed strip or ring” (replacing St. Jude’s “circular” with “closed”). In the prior art, Leonhardt discloses a graft material which extends the length of the entire structure. The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board’s finding that Leonhardt’s graft material was “like a sleeve” as opposed to “a closed strip or ring.” St. Jude argued that an ordinary skilled artisan’s understanding of the term “band” does not include a length restriction, that a Leonhardt’s material was just a long band, and that the Board effectively changed its construction of the term. The Federal Circuit, however, was not persuaded by St. Jude’s unlimited-length definition of “band,” instead turning to dictionary definitions that included terms like “thin” and “narrow,” and looking to the patent specification that did not explicitly disclaim any length restrictions. The Court ultimately rejected St. Jude’s arguments, finding that St. Jude should have proposed a claim construction that precluded any limitations on length if it wished to argue such. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s findings as to first decision.

The Federal Circuit next addressed Snyder’s cross-appeal. Snyder disputed the board’s construction of the “size[] and shape[]” of a frame that the patent requires must be inserted [...]

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Only Human: Broadest Reasonable Interpretation Standard Applies to Intentionally Expired Patent

by | Oct 22, 2020 | ,

Affirming an invalidity finding by the Patent and Trial Appeal Board (PTAB), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the claims of the now-expired patent should be construed under the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) standard, and not under the Phillips standard, because the patent owner intentionally gave up the remainder of the patent term only after the appeal was fully briefed. Immunex Corp. v. Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, Case Nos. 19-1749, -1777 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 13, 2020) (Prost, C.J.).

Immunex owns a patent directed to human antibodies that inhabit certain receptors to treat inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. After being sued for infringement, Sanofi and Regeneron (collectively, Sanofi) requested inter partes review (IPR) of the patent, which the PTAB instituted. Based on the IPR filing date and because the patent was unexpired during the pendency of the IPR proceeding, the PTAB used the BRI standard to construe various claim terms. Had the patent been expired, the PTAB would have used the more stringent Phillips standard to construe the claims. Ultimately, the PTAB found all of the challenged claims unpatentable. Immunex appealed.

After appellate briefing was complete, Immunex filed a terminal disclaimer of its patent. The US Patent and Trademark Office accepted the terminal disclaimer, and as a result the patent term expired approximately two months before oral argument. Immunex then filed a citation of supplemental authority informing the Federal Circuit of the terminal disclaimer and asking the Court to change the applicable claim construction standard from BRI to Phillips.

The Federal Circuit found that the application of the BRI standard to Immunex’s patent was appropriate. Although the PTAB currently applies the Phillips claim construction standard in all newly filed IPRs, at the time that Sanofi filed its IPRs, the PTAB applied the Phillips standard only to expired patents. For unexpired patents, it applied the BRI standard. The Court noted that the use of the Phillips standard in cases where the patent expired during the appellate process should not be an absolute, particularly when the patent term expired at an unexpected early date, such as through the filing of a terminal disclaimer.

The Federal Circuit further affirmed the PTAB’s claim construction under the BRI standard and the invalidity finding predicated on that claim construction. The issue on appeal was whether a “human antibody” must be entirely human (as asserted by Immunex) or whether it may also be “partially human,” including “humanized” (as asserted by Sanofi and construed by the PTAB). The Court agreed with the PTAB and found that the patent’s specification supported the conclusion that the BRI of “human antibody” “includes both fully human and partially human antibodies.” The Court also found that “human antibodies” in the context of the patent-in-suit is a broad category that encompasses both partially and completely human antibodies. The Court therefore affirmed the PTAB’s finding.

The Federal Circuit also commented on the PTAB’s departure from an earlier claim construction ruling by a district court in which “human” was construed to mean “fully [...]

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One Claim Construction Error Is Enough to Trigger New Trial on Infringement

by | Oct 8, 2020 | ,

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit re-affirmed that incorrect construction of even a single claim element can be grounds for a new trial on infringement. Network-1 Technologies, Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Company, Case Nos. 18-2338, -2339, -2395, -2396 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 24, 2020) (Prost, C.J.).

Network-1 Technologies sued Hewlett-Packard (HP) for patent infringement. HP defended on the grounds that the patent was invalid and that it did not infringe. The jury found the patent not infringed and invalid as obvious. Following post-trial motions, the district court denied Network-1’s request for a new trial on infringement but granted its motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on validity. The court found that HP should have been estopped from raising certain obviousness challenges as a consequence of certain obviousness challenges raised by a third party in a prior inter partes review (IPR) that were essentially the same as HP’s obviousness challenge here. Network-1 appealed the district court’s final judgment that HP did not infringe, arguing that the district court erred in its claim construction. HP cross-appealed on the issues of IPR estoppel under 35 USC § 315(e)(2) and invalidity because of a claim improperly broadened in re-examination.

On appeal, Network-1 contended that the district court erroneously construed the claim terms “main power source” and “low level current.” In order to prevail, Network-1 had to establish not only that at least one jury instruction on claim construction was legally erroneous, but that the error had prejudicial effect. Under Federal Circuit precedent, an incorrect claim construction that removes from the jury a basis on which it reasonably could have reached a different verdict can be an incorrect jury instruction. As the Court explained in Avid Tech. v. Harmonic (Fed. Cir. 2016), “[a]n erroneous claim construction on one element is harmless ‘only if a reasonable jury would have been required by the evidence to find non-infringement even without the error.’”

The Federal Circuit concluded that the district court correctly construed the term “low level current” but erred in its construction of “main power source” to exclude AC power sources on the basis of expert testimony that receipt of AC power by a network device would render it inoperable. The Court deemed this error for two reasons:

    • Even though the network device cannot receive AC power, the record established that “data nodes” or network switches were commonly used to convert AC power to DC power as needed to power the network device. Because nothing in the patent claims precluded the conversion of AC power to DC power, it was error for the district court to add such a limitation.
    • The district court erred by adding a limitation to the claims to carve out certain inoperable embodiments, in this case embodiments that do not convert AC to DC. The Federal Circuit has previously explained that it is improper to add limitations to a claim to exclude only certain inoperable embodiments (Cordis v. Medtronic (Fed. Cir. 2008)). Here, [...]

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Logic to Modify: Even Deceptive Intent Does Not Bar Inventorship Correction

by | Sep 16, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated a district court invalidity determination finding that judicial estoppel prevented a patent owner from relisting an inventor previously removed for strategic litigation purposes. Egenera, Inc. v. Cisco Sys., Inc., Case Nos. 19-2015, -2387 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 28, 2020) (Prost, C.J.).

Egenera sued Cisco for infringement of a patent directed to a reconfigurable virtual network that included a “logic to modify” and transmit received messages. In response Cisco petitioned for inter partes review (IPR). During the IPR’s pendency, Egenera realized that all claim limitations were conceived of before inventor Schulter began working at the company, and petitioned the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to remove Schulter as a listed inventor. The Patent and Trial Appeal Board (PTAB) declined to institute Cisco’s IPR, and the PTO granted Egenera’s petition to remove Schulter shortly thereafter.

During the litigation, the district court construed the patent claims’ “logic” terms as means-plus-function elements and concluded that the “logic to modify” limitation corresponded to a “tripartite structure” described in the specification. Cisco then asserted invalidity under pre-America Invents Act (AIA) § 102(f), contending that Schulter invented the tripartite structure, and that the patent therefore did not list all inventors. Egenera attempted to re-correct inventorship to include Schulter, but the court rejected the attempt. The district court found the patent invalid under § 102(f), reasoning that judicial estoppel precluded Egenera from “resurrecting” Schulter’s inventorship. Egenera appealed both the means-plus-function construction and the judicial estoppel finding.

The Federal Circuit first addressed whether Egenera could correct inventorship absent any judicial estoppel. The Court looked to the plain meaning of post-AIA § 256, which provides that “the error of omitting inventors . . . shall not invalidate the patent . . . if it can be corrected.” Notably, post-AIA § 256 removed the requirement that an inventorship error occur “without . . . deceptive intent.” The Federal Circuit stated it plainly: “‘Error’ is simply the incorrect listing of inventors” and does not exclude even deceptive intention. The Court explained that the inequitable conduct rules provide a safety valve for such actions, not § 256. The Court also noted that at the time Egenera removed Schulter as an inventor, no one had argued that “logic to modify” was means-plus-function language, which it presumptively was not. Egenera’s preferred construction of that term was consistent with its assertion that Schulter was not an inventor. The omission of Schulter as inventor was thus an “error” within the scope of § 256.

The Federal Circuit next turned to whether Egenera was judicially estopped from relisting Schulter as an inventor. Applying the First Circuit’s New Hampshire factors, the Federal Circuit looked to whether Egenera’s positions were inconsistent, whether its first position was successfully accepted by the court, and whether Egenera would derive an unfair advantage if not estopped. The Federal Circuit found that the district court erred in finding Egenera’s changing inventorship positions inconsistent. The Court explained that inventorship is complex and can depend on claim [...]

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Structural Limitations Are Not Met by Imaginary Demarcation Lines

by | Sep 9, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s claim construction of the term “end plate” that required a flat external surface, and its construction of the term “protrusion extending outwardly from the end plate” that required a demarcation between the protrusion and end plate. The Federal Circuit therefore prohibited an infringement theory premised on an end plate being inside the accused product and a protrusion that was not demarcated from the end plate. Neville v. Foundation Constructors, Inc., Case No. 20-1132 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 27, 2020) (Chen, J.).

Neville owns patents directed to foundation piles, which are tubular structures placed into the ground to provide stability for the foundations built over them. One set of claims requires an “end plate having a substantially flat surface disposed perpendicular to the centerline of the tubular pile.” Another set of claims requires “at least one protrusion extending outwardly from the end plate.”

Neville filed a lawsuit alleging that Foundation Constructors’ pile tips infringed the patents. The district court granted summary judgment of non-infringement, reasoning that the plain meaning of “end plate having a substantially flat surface” did not encompass “an interior surface facing into the rest of the pile tip.” Examining the intrinsic record, the district court concluded that “the patent applicant intended the ‘substantially flat surface’ of the end plate to refer to the side of the end plate facing outward.” The court found that the accused products did not have such an “end plate.” As to claims requiring a protrusion extending outwardly from the end plate, the court reasoned that “[b]ecause the end piece of the accused pile tip is a single, conically-shaped piece, there is not a demarcation of where an ‘end plate’ should end and the ‘protrusion’ should begin,” and non-infringement was therefore appropriate. Neville appealed.

Neville argued that the district court’s ruling of non-infringement was based on an incorrect claim construction and should therefore be overturned. The Federal Circuit rejected Neville’s arguments and affirmed summary judgment.

The Federal Circuit agreed with the district court that the phrase “substantially flat surface disposed perpendicular to the centerline of the tubular pile” did not refer to any interior-facing surface. Starting with the language of the claim, the Court found that the word “end” suggested that the relevant surface of the end plate is the external one at the second end of the pile tip. The Court found that the specification reinforced the view that the invention was directed to the exterior surface of the end plate as being “substantially flat,” and through this end plate the pile tip applies force to the underlying soil. Neville argued that the specification implicitly taught that an end plate having a substantially flat surface perpendicular to the tubular pile could be fully interior to another portion of the pile tip because the specification disclosed that the pile tip, including the end plate, “could be cast as a single unit.” The Court rejected Neville’s argument, finding that under Neville’s logic, the [...]

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Glass Half Empty: Patent Reciting “Half Liquid” Is Indefinite

by | Aug 13, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding that the asserted patent claims were invalid as indefinite because the meaning of the term “half-liquid” was not reasonably clear from the record. IBSA Institut Biochimique, S.A. v. Teva Pharms. USA, Inc., Case No. 19-2400 (Fed. Cir. July 31, 2020) (Prost, C.J.).

IBSA owns a patent directed to pharmaceutical formulations for thyroid hormones that enable a safe and stable oral administration. IBSA listed in the Orange Book the patent for Tirosint®, a soft gel capsule formulation containing the active ingredient levothyroxine sodium. Teva filed an abbreviated new drug application to market a generic version of Tirosint®, and IBSA responded by filing a lawsuit for patent infringement against Teva.

During claim construction, the parties disputed the construction of the term “half-liquid.” IBSA proposed that “half-liquid” should be construed to mean “semi-liquid,” while Teva argued that the term was indefinite or should be construed as “a non-solid, non-paste, non-gel, non-slurry, non-gas substance.” The district court began its analysis by acknowledging that the parties “agree that the intrinsic record does not define ‘half-liquid.’” IBSA argued that a priority Italian patent application’s use of the word “semiliquido” (translation: semi-liquid) in the same places where “half-liquid” was used in the patent at issue supported its position that the two terms were synonyms. The district court disagreed, noting several differences in the two patents that indicated that the different choice of terms was intentional. Further, the district court noted that the applicant originally used the term “semi-liquid” in a dependent claim during prosecution, but later removed this term, indicating that the applicant understood the terms to be different and intentionally chose not to use “semi-liquid” in the asserted claims. The district court also found IBSA’s extrinsic evidence (e.g., reliance on dictionary definitions, other patents and expert testimony) unpersuasive. The district court accordingly found the asserted patent claims invalid as indefinite because the meaning of “half-liquid” was not reasonably ascertainable from the record. IBSA appealed.

The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Court first found that the intrinsic record failed to establish the boundaries of the term “half-liquid.” The Court agreed with the district court’s analysis, finding that neither the claims nor the specification supported IBSA’s proposed construction. The Court also explained that the prosecution history reinforced the conclusion that the applicant understood “half-liquid” to be different from “semi-liquid,” because the applicant intentionally removed the term “semi-liquid” in a dependent claim during prosecution. The Court disagreed with IBSA’s suggestion that the district court refused to consider the foreign Italian priority document—rather, “when discrepancies between a foreign priority document and the U.S. filing exist, it may be proper to view the discrepancies as intentional.”

Turning to the extrinsic record, the Federal Circuit found that the district court did not clearly err in its analysis of the presented dictionary definitions, other patents and expert testimony. The Court noted that IBSA identified no scientific dictionaries containing the term despite IBSA’s argument that “half-liquid” would be a recognizable term [...]

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Joined Parties Have Rights Too

by | Jul 22, 2020 | ,

In vacating an unpatentability decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the rights of a joined party to an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding applies to the entirety of the proceedings and includes the right of appeal. Fitbit, Inc. v. Valencell, Inc., Case No. 19-1048 (Fed. Cir. July 8, 2020) (Newman, J.).

Apple petitioned the Board for IPR of certain claims of a patent owned by Valencell. The Board granted the petition in part, instituting review of certain claims and denying review of other claims. After institution of the Apple IPR, Fitbit filed an IPR petition for the instituted claims and moved for joinder with Apple’s IPR. The Board granted Fitbit’s petition, granted the motion for joinder and terminated Fitbit’s separate proceeding.

After the Apple/Fitbit IPR hearing, but before any Final Written Decision was issued, the Supreme Court decided SAS Institute v. Iancu (IP Update, Vol. 21, No. 5), holding that the America Invents Act requires that all patent claims challenged in an IPR petition must be reviewed by the Board if the petition is granted. Accordingly, the Board re-instituted the Apple/Fitbit IPR to add the previously denied patent claims. The Board’s Final Written Decision found the originally instituted claims unpatentable, but the newly instituted claims not unpatentable. After the decision, Apple withdrew from the proceeding. Fitbit appealed the decision as to newly instituted claims that had been found not unpatentable.

On appeal, Valencell challenged Fitbit’s right to appeal as to the newly instituted claims. 35 U.S.C. § 319 provides that “[a]ny party to the inter partes review shall have the right to be a party to the appeal.” Valencell argued that Fitbit does not have the status of “party” for purposes of appeal because Fitbit did not request review of the newly instituted claims in its initial IPR petition, did not request leave to amend its initial petition after the Supreme Court’s decision in SAS Institute and did not submit a separate brief with respect to the non-instituted claims after the joined IPR was re-instituted. Valencell also argued that because the Board stated that Fitbit would have “limited participation, if at all, and required Fitbit to seek authorization from the Board before filing any papers,” Fitbit was not a full participant in the joined IPR.

Fitbit responded that Valencell did not object to Fitbit’s joinder and did not object to or seek to qualify Fitbit’s continued participation after the Board re-instituted the joined IPR to include the new claims, so there was only one IPR. Fitbit also cited the Board’s statement in granting its joinder motion that the “[d]ecision addressing the status of each challenged claim in this proceeding applies to all parties.” Fitbit acknowledged that it did not seek to file a separate brief after the new claims were added to the IPR, but claimed no separate brief was needed to present the issues.

The Federal Circuit agreed with Fitbit, finding that the circumstances [...]

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Lights Turned Out on Validity Finding

by | Apr 23, 2020 |

Finding that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) anticipation and obviousness decisions resulted from an erroneous interpretation of the claim language and a misunderstanding of case law, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the PTAB’s decision and remanded for further consideration. Technical Consumer Products v. Lighting Science Group Corp., Case No. 19-1361 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 8, 2020) (Stoll, J.).

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