The Supreme Court of Texas held that a limited partner had standing to sue for alleged loss in the value of its interest in the partnership, but reversed a damages award in favor of that limited partner for insufficient evidence. Pike v. Texas EMC Management, LLC, Case No. 17-0557 (Tex. June 19, 2020) (Busby, J) (Bland, J, dissenting).
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Addressing a variety of challenges to a judgment against defendants in a trade secret misappropriation action, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that the plaintiff had standing on the basis of lawful possession (as opposed to ownership) of the trade secret materials and that the damages awarded, including punitives, was supported by sufficient evidence. Advanced Fluid Systems, Inc. v. Huber, Case Nos. 19-1722; -1752 (3d Cir. Apr. 30, 2020) (Jordan, J.).
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that patented articles must be marked in order for the patentee to recover pre-notification or pre-complaint damages. Arctic Cat Inc. v. Bombardier Recreational Products Inc., Case No. 19-1080 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 19, 2020) (Lourie, J).
In 2002, Arctic Cat entered into a licensing agreement with Honda for patents related to personal watercraft. The license agreement contained no provisions requiring Honda, as a licensee, to mark all licensed products with the applicable patent numbers. Honda began selling unmarked watercraft, and Arctic Cat made no attempt to ensure that the products were marked. Approximately a decade later, Honda stopped selling the unmarked products.
On an issue of first impression in a copyright infringement dispute out of the Southern District of Texas, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit confirmed that failure to mitigate is not a complete defense to copyright or Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims for statutory damages. Energy Intelligence Grp., Inc. et. al., v. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, LP, et. al., Case No. 18-20350 (5th Cir., January 15, 2020) (Higginson, J.).
In 2014, energy industry publisher Energy Intelligence Group, Inc. and its affiliated entity in the United Kingdom (together, EIG) filed suit against energy securities investment firm Kayne Anderson Capital Advisers (KA), alleging copyright infringement and abuses of the DMCA based on a KA partner’s violation of US copyright law and violation of his subscription agreement for EIG’s Oil Daily newsletter, which provides news and analysis about the North America petroleum industry. The jury in the district court proceeding found that EIG could have reasonably avoided almost all of the alleged copyright and DMCA violations through real-time investigations and enforcement efforts, and thus awarded EIG just over $500,000 in statutory damages for the infringement of 39 works of authorship. The district court, however, still applied the Copyright Act’s fee shifting provisions and awarded EIG over $2.6 million in attorney’s fees and costs. The parties’ consolidated appeals to the Fifth Circuit thus presented an issue of first impression: namely, whether the failure to mitigate copyright infringement is a complete defense to liability for statutory damages under the Copyright Act and the DMCA.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has reversed a district court ruling awarding statutory copyright damages for pre-registration infringements, explaining that the statute bars such an award even when the post-registration infringement of exclusive rights of the copyright holder is different from the pre-registration act(s). Southern Credentialing Support Services, LLC v. Hammond Surgical Hospital, LLC, Case No. 18-31160 (5th Cir. Jan. 9, 2020) (Costa, J.). This case analyzes § 412 of the US Copyright Act, which bars an award of statutory damages for infringements commenced prior to registration of a copyright.
Credentialing is a process doctors must complete to practice at hospitals, and credentialing service providers verify the information doctors provide. Southern Credentialing Support Services (SCSS) began providing credentialing services to Hammond in 2010, and designed two packets of custom forms for credentialing uses by Hammond. After SCSS stopped providing services to Hammond in 2013, Hammond contracted with another provider for credentialing services and continued to use some of the forms developed by SCSS. By 2017, the new provider for Hammond had also made the SCSS forms available online. SCSS did not obtain copyright registration for its forms until 2014, after learning that Hammond was still using some of the SCSS forms. After the parties failed to resolve the dispute amicably, SCSS sued Hammond for copyright infringement.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that the majority of the batches of an accused biosimilar manufactured by Hospira were not protected by the Safe Harbor exemption of § 271(e)(1), and that patent infringement damages were not unreasonable, notwithstanding that none of the accused product had been sold. Amgen Inc. v. Hospira, Inc., Case Nos. 19-1067; -1102 (Fed. Cir., Dec. 16, 2019)(Moore, J.).
EPO is a glycoprotein that regulates red blood cell development. Recombinant versions of EPO are used to treat anemia. One example is Amgen’s product Epogen. In 2014, Hospira submitted a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting approval for its EPO biosimilar. Amgen then sued Hospira for infringement of its patent directed to methods of producing EPO isoforms and its patent directed to recombinant cells producing EPO at certain rates. Specifically, Amgen asserted that 21 pre-approval batches of EPO manufactured by Hospira infringed various claims of these patents.
Hospira appealed.
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