The U.S. Supreme Court took a step today towards limiting patent infringement cases, at least ones involving "method" patents (i.e., ones that describe a process rather than a device, design, or other patentable subject matter).
Kinds of infringement
Patent infringement may take different forms:
How not to defer.
Last month, Blawgletter pointed out that the Supreme Court had granted review in a case that may curb the Federal Circuit. We noted:
A rule that has applied in patent cases since 1998 may go the way of Chevy Cobalt ignition switches.
Boy, the Federal Circuit's sure lowered the boom on Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner in Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., No. 12-1548 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 25, 2014).
Smartphone warfare.
The appeal dealt with Judge Posner's rulings as a trial court judge in the Northern District of Illinois phase of the titanic smartphone struggle between Apple and Motorola
If you've handled a bunch of patent cases without running across the Kessler doctrine, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Until today, IP wizards like you likely had little cause to know about the patent-claim-killing rule that sprang more than a century ago from Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907). Be warned. It's
A crucial part of a patent case involves the Markman hearing. There, the district judge listens to and sees evidence, PowerPoints, blow-ups, claim charts, and arguments that each side puts forward in hopes that Her Honor will choose their version of what the words of the patent claims mean.
You might wonder why they
The big three of intellectual property disputes in federal courts – the Copyright Act, the Patent Act, and the Lanham (Trademark) Act – drew the focus of the U.S. Supreme Court today. The justices granted review in three IP cases and one IP-ish one. The cases present these questions:
Whether the Federal Circuit erred in holding
That homologous recombination occurs between the targeted DNA and an introduced plasmid that is homologous to a chromosome does not require that the targeted DNA actually be chromosomal DNA. It requires only that the targeted DNA be homologous to chromosomal DNA. Non-chromosomal DNA, such as mitochondrial DNA or DNA in an additional plasmid, can be
Patent law allows a trial court to make the losing party pay the winner's attorneys' fees but only in "exceptional cases". 35 U.S.C. 285. What counts as "exceptional", you say? Good question.
The U.S. Supreme Court plans to answer it in Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc., No. 12-1184 (U.S.), which
The expense of a big document case lies mainly in the looking for, the sifting through, and the analysis of your client's, and the other side's, megabytes and terabytes of ESI — "electronically stored information", in the words of Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
You'd like to shift that burden to
Blawgletter not too long ago got one of those machines that heats water and then blasts it through a canister of coffee essence to make — voila! — a steaming cup of joe.
These devices come from a Wide Range of sources, but many of them appear to spring from people who make the coffee-essence-canisters