The patent assignment says the assignor — the Inventor — will receive a share of any "recovery of damages" from litigation of the heart-stent patent that he assigned.
The assignee — let's call it Scimed — sues an infringer — which we'll call Cordis. Cordis in turn brings an action against Scimed, accusing it of
What happens on appeal after the district court struck an expert report that did not exist until after the other side had deposed the expert and moved for summary judgment and the discovery deadline had passed?
The Federal Circuit affirms, silly. Cheese Systems, Inc. v. Tetra Pak Cheese and Power Systems, Inc., No. 12-1463
You can try a patent infringement case, win a verdict awarding millions in damages, and prevail on appeal as to the other side's invalidity defense, but still lose the case because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office later declares the patent invalid.
So held the Federal Circuit, by a 2-1 vote, on July 2, 2013. Fresenius
Farmers plant seeds. Where do they get the seeds? Lots of places. Their own crops. Farmer Crawford up the road. Bean sellers. Monsanto. And so on.
What if the seeds use a technique that someone — Monsanto, say — has taken out a patent on? Can you use seeds from a crop that you or
To Blawgletter's eye, a complaint that alleges patent infringement bears itself with a certain elegance. Such a pleading often runs but several pages, and in substance it states that the Bad Guy defendant does some thing or things that infringe the Good Person plaintiff's patent. And Form 18 — which appears with its brothers and
Wilson Sporting Goods put the number of Jack L. Frolow's tennis racket patent on 14 models of its tennis rackets. It also paid Frolow royalties on 299 racket models. Yet the district court granted Wilson summary judgment on the theory that Frolow hadn't put forward any evidence that the rackets infringed his patent.
The Federal
You've heard of the term, "lawsuit within a lawsuit" or "case within a case", right? It refers to a dispute that requires you to prove Claim A in order to prevail on Claim B.
Examples abound. Think of a tortious interference with contract claim. You have to show not only that the Bad Guy did something to interfere
Today the Supreme Court granted review in Federal Trade Comm'n v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, No. 12-416 (U.S.), an antitrust case that presents the question of whether section 1 of the Sherman Act bars Competitor A from paying Competitor B to delay rolling out a generic drug that vies for sales with Competitor A's brand-name drug. Posts
Fix in your mind an image — of an offshore drilling rig. One that looks like a big boat. You see the derrick. It sits atop and in the middle of the boat. And then you notice something odd. The derrick has two tops, from each of which a string of metal depends. What gives?
Blawgletter wrote No More Mr. Nice Patent-Infringer Guy about five years ago. It told about how the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit had lately cleared the way for people to pre-empt a lawsuit for patent infringement by suing for a declaratory judgment first. And just last week we pointed out that someone who avails herself of the pre-emptive