Congratulations to our newest member of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, confirmed today by by the US Senate.  Justice Brown Jackson will take office once Justice Breyer retires in June 2022.  She does not have substantial patent law experience, but does have extensive experience handling administrative law cases based upon her time as a Federal District Court Judge and Appellate Judge, both in the District of Columbia.

Longtime Commissioner of Patents Drew Hirshfeld announced today that he plans to leave the USPTO this summer.  Until that point, he will likely serve as Acting Deputy Director to help Kathi Vidal hit the ground running as she begins her tenure as USPTO Director.  Hirshfeld writes:

Kathi Vidal … is, without a doubt, the right person to lead the USPTO. Not only is she highly qualified, but she has also repeatedly shown me and so many others how thoughtful and steadfast she is in her determination to do the right things for this agency and our nation’s inventors and entrepreneurs. She will be a great leader. . . . I cannot think of a better way to conclude my time at the agency than by helping Kathi in any way I can before a permanent deputy director arrives.

In this structure, Andy Faile will stay on as acting Commissioner for Patents until a new Commissioner is appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. 35 U.S.C. 3 (“The Secretary of Commerce shall appoint a Commissioner for Patents . . . for a term of 5 years.”).  Dave Berdan has been serving in the role of deputy director under Hirshfeld.  Berdan will likely return to his role as General Counsel — pushing Will Covey back to his permanent role of Deputy General Counsel and Director for the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED).

by Dennis Crouch

Littelfuse, Inc. v. Mersen USA EP Corp., 2022 WL 995611, — 4th — (Fed. Cir. Apr. 4, 2022)

The district court narrowly construed Littelfuse’s U.S. Patent No. 9,564,281–leading to an admission of non-infringement.  On appeal, the Federal Circuit has vacated and remanded–finding that the proper construction provides a broader scope.

The patent claims an end-cap for a fuse and particularly requires “a fastening stem [465] that extends from the mounting cuff [460] and into [a] cavity [410] of the terminal [432].”  Claim 1 does not expressly indicate whether these parts (cuff / stem / terminal) are made from a single piece of metal (unitary) or instead are multi-piece.  Claims 8 & 9, do provide for unitary bodies that are machined/stamped “from a single, contiguous piece of conductive material.”

The district court construed claim 1 as covering only a multi-piece apparatus.  Since Mersen’s fuses were clearly unitary, Littelfuse conceded the absence of literal infringement.  In addition, Littelfuse had narrowed this portion of the claim during prosecution — that amendment also likely foreclosed a claim of equivalents.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit rejected this narrow claim construction on the following canons:

1. Textualism: Look first to the language of the claim at issue. Here, claim 1 does not require  a multi-piece arrangement.
2. Claim Differentiation: Interpret an independent and dependent claims so that their coverage fits like nested dolls.  Here, the district court interpreted claim 1 as excluding a unitary-body while dependent claims 8&9 require a unitary body.
3. Consider the Prosecution History: Here, the examiner wrote in their reasons for allowance that claims 8 & 9 “require all the limitations of [claim 1].”  This gives weight to the Claim Differentiation canon.
4. Don’t Limit Claims to the Preferred Embodiment: Here, the only embodiment that included the stem/cuff/terminal arrangement was a multi-piece apparatus. But, “Nothing in the specification states that a fastening stem cannot be present in a single-piece apparatus. . . . One can envision a stem that projects from the side of the mounting cuff even in an embodiment in which the fuse end cap is formed from a single piece of material.”

These canons together led the Federal Circuit to reject the district court’s claim construction.

Not such an easy case: So far, I’ve suggested that this was an easy case. But, the district court also had good reason for its determination that the end-cap was a multi-part.  In particular, embodiments of the specification appear to provide for two types of end-units.  Unitary and multi-part. The unitary embodiments do not have the fastening stem — it is not needed because the cuff and terminal are made of the same piece of metal.  On the other hand, the multi-part embodiments do show the fastening stem — it is needed in order to connect the cuff and terminal because they are separate pieces of metal.  You can see this difference from the multi-part drawing (above) with the unitary drawing (below).  The original claims did not include the fastening stem, but that limitation was added during prosecution in order to avoid prior art.  That addition, according to the district court, shifted the claim meaning to only cover multi-part caps. The district court noted the dependent claims but suggested that it was a mistake by the examiner to allow those after the amendment.

On remand: The patent discloses a multi-part cap with a stem; and a unitary cap without a stem.  The accused product is apparently a merger of these two – a unitary cap with a stem. The Federal Circuit has ruled here that the claims extend that far.  On remand, the district court may consider whether the full extent of this expanded claim scope is supported under the written description and enablement requirements of 112(a).

by Dennis Crouch

In an important 2018 decision, the Federal Circuit sided partially with Berkheimer on a procedural eligibility grounds — finding disputed questions of material fact as to whether aspects of the claimed invention were “well-understood, routine, and conventional to a skilled artisan.” Berkheimer v. HP Inc., 881 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018), cert denied 140 S.Ct. 911 (2020).  The district court had invalidated claims 1-9 as ineligible and 10-19 as indefinite. The appellate panel vacated that decision as to claims 4-7 but otherwise affirmed.

Back on remand, the district court Judge John Lee has now ruled that the remaining claims are also indefinite under section 112p2. Steven E. Berkheimer, Pl.  v. HP, Inc., 12-cv-9023, 2022 WL 910580 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 29, 2022).  [Berkheimer_v._Hewlett-Packard__314]

The invention is a method of parsing computer files into “multi-part object structures” with “searchable information tags.” The system then uses “manual reconciliation” that involves looking for a measure of variance. The basic idea is that this system provides a searchable archive with reduced redundancy.  Claims 10-19 require “minimal redundancy.”  That term was not defined in the specification, and the district court found it indefinite.  Berkheimer v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 2015 WL 4999954 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 21, 2015).  The Federal Circuit then affirmed that decision.

The specification uses inconsistent terminology to describe the level of redundancy that the system achieves. For example, it describes “minimiz[ing] redundant objects,” “eliminating redundancy,” and “reducing redundancies.” The only example included in the specification is an archive that exhibits no redundancy. … The specification contains no point of comparison for skilled artisans to determine an objective boundary of “minimal” when the archive includes some redundancies.

The prosecution history does not add clarity. In response to an indefiniteness rejection during prosecution, Mr. Berkheimer explained that the claim “desires to eliminate redundancy” but includes the word “minimal” because “to eliminate all redundancy in the field of the claimed invention is not likely.” This does not explain how much redundancy is permitted.

Berkheimer (Fed. Cir. 2018).  The remaining claims 4-7 do not use the term “minimal redundancy”, but instead require an archive “without substantial redundancy.”  On remand, the district court found that term equally problematic and ultimately concluded that it failed delineate “the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty.” Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 572 U.S. 898 (2014).

Without Substantial Redundancy: The district court identified the “substantial” wiggle-word as “facially ambiguous”–but concluded that ambiguity could be permissible someone of skill in the art had sufficient guideposts.  Typically, those guides might come from examples within the specification.  Here, however, the patent specification only includes an example of no-redundancy.  And, during prosecution it appears that the examiner and Berkheimer treated “without substantial redundancy” and “minimal redundancy” as synonyms.  Thus, the district court found that “substantial redundancy” lacked reasonable certainty for the same reasons as “minimal redundancy.”

Although Berkheimer could have also presented extrinsic evidence regarding the meaning of ‘substantial’ the court indicated that he did not do so.

“Judgment is entered in HP’s favor, and this case is terminated.”

= = = =

The district court invalidated the “minimal redundancy” claims as part of its 2015 claim construction order.  At that time, neither party suggested that “without substantial redundancy” needed construction or was invalid.   It was only on remand that HP raised the new argument.  Berkheimer unsuccessfully argued waiver. The district court noted that its scheduling order did not preclude late-stage indefiniteness arguments.

Oddly, the district court went on to conclude that “the construction of ‘without substantial redundancy’ only became relevant after the Federal Circuit held that the synonymous term ‘minimal redundancy’ was invalid.”  This statement is wrong.  The issue was already relevant well before; and the Federal Circuit affirmed a prior invalidity finding.  What is true: back in 2015, the parties were limited to only 10 claim construction issues and ‘without substantial redundancy’ didn’t make the top-ten list.  The Federal Circuit decision pushed it up in the ranking.

= = = =

One result here is that Berkheimer will never get the chance to present the eligibility issues to the jury for their factual findings.

by Dennis Crouch

Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (Supreme Court 2022)

Although Warhol is dead, his art, legacy, copyrights, and potential copy-wrongs live on.  In the 1980s, Warhol created a set of silkscreens of the musician Prince.  Prince did not personally model for the prints.  Rather, Warhol worked from a set of studio photographs by Lynn Goldsmith. Apparently Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to make an illustration for its 1984 article on Prince.  As part of that process, VF obtained a license from Goldsmith, but only for the limited use “as an artist’s reference in connection with an article to be published in Vanity Fair Magazine.” The published article acknowledges Goldsmith. As part of that process, Warhol created a set of 16 Prince prints. Those have been sold and also reproduced in various forms in ways that go well beyond the original license.

Litigation ensued, and the basic question in the case is whether Warhol’s unlicensed uses constitute “fair use” under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. 17 U.S.C. § 107.  Here, in particular, Warhol argues that his use is so “transformative” of the original photographs that no license is needed.  The 2nd Circuit sided with the photographer Goldsmith — finding “the Prince Series works are substantially similar to the Goldsmith Photograph as a matter of law” and that “all four [fair use] factors favor Goldsmith.”   Although art critics and art historians will certainly see the works as quite different (especially if they know Warhol was the artist), the Second Circuit concluded copyright law does not ask Federal Judges to serve in that role:

[T]ransformative[ness] cannot turn merely on the stated or perceived intent of the artist or the meaning or impression that a critic – or for that
matter, a judge – draws from the work. . . . In conducting this inquiry … the district judge should not assume the role of art critic and seek to ascertain the intent behind or meaning of the works at issue. That is so both because judges are typically unsuited to make aesthetic judgments and because such perceptions are inherently subjective.

Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 11 F.4th 26 (2d Cir. 2021).

The Supreme Court has now granted Warhol’s petition for writ of certiorari focusing  primarily on the transformative messaging provided by his works.  The petition argues that the Second Circuit unduly limited its analysis in ways contrary to prior Supreme Court precedent.

Question Presented: Whether a work of art is “transformative” when it conveys a different meaning or message from its source material (as this Court, the Ninth Circuit, and other courts of appeals have held), or whether a court
is forbidden from considering the meaning of the accused work where it “recognizably deriv[es] from” its source material (as the Second Circuit has held).

Warhol petition.  In its opposition briefing, Goldsmith reframed the question, focusing on the fact that the creation reproduced major elements of the photographs for the purpose of being published in the same magazine where Goldsmith’s own photographs have been repeatedly published.

Andy Warhol produced a series of silkscreens by reproducing respondent Lynn Goldsmith’s photographic portrait of the musician Prince and adding additional elements. Petitioner Andy Warhol Foundation then licensed those works to Vanity Fair, a magazine that has also featured Goldsmith’s portraits of musicians and celebrities.

The question presented is whether the Second Circuit correctly held that Warhol’s silkscreens of Prince did not constitute a transformative use, where Warhol’s silkscreens shared the same purpose as Goldsmith’s copyrighted photograph and retained essential artistic elements of Goldsmith’s photograph.

Goldsmith Brief in Opposition.

Parties (and amici) will file their merits briefs over the summer and we can expect oral arguments in the Fall.

[Updated 4/2/2022 to account for differences between refusals under Section 2(a) vs 2(e)(1)]. 

In re Dolce Vita Footwear (Fed. Cir. 2022)

This is a pending trademark case involving the mark CLEAR that Dolce Vita uses on their shoes. I remember the 1980s and gel-sandals; my internet search also reveals some beautiful translucent Crocs. Still, when I saw the brand name CLEAR as applied to footwear, I did not expect for the shoes to be transparent.  

The USPTO did expect the CLEAR shoes to be transparent and so refused to register the trademark because it was deceptively misdescriptive.  Note here that the applicant was seeking to register the mark for both Footwear and Bags/Cases.

No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it … (e) Consists of a mark which (1) when used on or in connection with the goods of the applicant is merely descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive of them . . .

Section 2(e) (15 U.S.C. 1052(e)).

The Federal Circuit provides a three-part test for deceptive misdescriptiveness:

(1) Is the term misdescriptive of the character, quality, function, composition or use of the goods?

(2) If so, are prospective purchasers likely to believe that the misdescription actually describes the goods?

(3) If so, is the misdescription likely to affect the decision to purchase?

In re Budge Mfg. Co., Inc., 857 F.2d 773 (Fed. Cir. 1988).  In Budge, the Federal Circuit found substantial evidence to support the conclusion that “LOVEE LAMB” seat covers were deceptive in their misdescription because they were made of synthetic fibers rather than sheepskin.  Note here that Budge was decided under 2(a), which bars “deceptive” marks generally.  In Dolce Vita, the TTAB cited Budge, but cut the test down to just the first two parts. The TTAB did not explain its justification for this difference, but it comes down to how the USPTO has a different treatment for deception under 2(a) compared with 2(e).

In prior cases, the TTAB had explained that

The test for deceptive misdescriptiveness [under 2(e)] has two parts. First we must determine if the matter sought to be registered misdescribes the goods. If so, then we must ask if it is also deceptive, that is, if anyone is likely to believe the misrepresentation.

In re Quady Winery Inc., 221 USPQ 1213 (TTAB 1984).  The third question in the Budge test is “used to distinguish between marks that are deceptive under … Section 2(a) and marks that are deceptively misdescriptive under Section 2(e)(1).”  See In re Perfect Fit Industries, Inc., 223 USPQ 92 (TTAB 1984). TMPE 1203.02(c).  The distinction between 2(a) deceptive marks and 2(e) deceptively misdescriptive marks is important.  The TTAB has interpreted the trademark laws as creating an absolute bar to registering deceptive matter under 2(a), but deceptively misdescriptive marks are registrable in the principle register upon a showing of acquired distinctiveness, as permitted under 2(f).  (Thanks to Professor Tyler Ochoa for suggesting further clarification here).

In any event, the TTAB concluded “we have no doubt that consumers will immediately perceive the word ‘clear’ as describing a feature or attribute that Applicant’s footwear and clothing could plausibly have.”

Now, Dolce Vita has appealed to the Federal Circuit arguing that its recitation of its products as “non-transparent goods” sidesteps the misdescription issue.  “There is no evidence that consumers understand CLEAR to be misdescriptive in these circumstances, as non-transparent goods cannot plausibly be transparent.”   This argument appears to fall within the English saying of “too clever by half.”

Dolce Vita also pointed to a lack of evidence that “reasonably prudent purchasers” are likely to fooled by the misdescription.  Prudent buyers looks at the shoes (or image of the shoes) before purchasing–“the quintessential consumer goods that buyers will invariably visually inspect (and often try on) before purchase.”  Thus, even if there is some potential for initial confusion, nobody would be fooled for long. Hoover Co. v. Royal Appliance Mfg. Co., 238 F.3d 1357, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (focus on whether misdescription “materially induce[s] a purchaser’s decision to buy”), quoting 2 McCarthy on Trademarks § 11:56 (2000).

• DolceVitaBrief
• TTAB Decision

The First Amendment has been doing some work in trademark law — but the bar on “deceptively misdescriptive” marks will likely stand, at least under Central Hudson’s test focusing on “nonmisleading commercial speech.” C. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Commn. of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 563 (1980) (“The government may ban forms of communication more likely to deceive the public than to inform it.”).

Shoe brand is "CLEAR." But, it turns out that the shoes are not actually transparent.

— Dennis Crouch (@patentlyo) April 1, 2022

by Dennis Crouch

Correll v. Hirshfeld (Fed. Cir. 2022) (pending appeal)

From 2002-2017, Kevin Correll worked as an electrical engineer for the US Navy.  Correll is also a patent attorney and during that time Correll ran his own small firm.  In 2016, someone at the Navy figured out that this was a problem and worked with the USPTO Office of Enrollment & Discipline to begin an investigation.  Why is this a problem — at least according to the USPTO “U.S. Government employees are not available to accept private clients or to represent clients other than their agency before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.”  This quote comes from the USPTO mandatory survey of registered practitioners and is only loosely based upon the most on-point statute and regulations. 18 U.S.C. §§ 203, 205; 37 CFR § 11.111.  Rather, Rule 11.111 limits Federal Employees from acting “contrary to applicable Federal ethics law, including conflict of interest statutes.”  Here, the conflict of interest statutes (18 U.S.C. §§ 203, 205) include the following prohibitions:

Whoever … receives … any compensation for any representational services, as agent or attorney or otherwise … (B) at a time when such person is an … employee … of the United States … in relation to any … application … in which the United States is a party or has a direct and substantial interest, before any department, agency, court, court-martial, officer, or any civil, military, or naval commission [shall be punished]. 18 U.S.C. § 203.

Whoever, being an … employee of the United States … (2) acts as agent or attorney for anyone before any department, agency … in connection with any covered matter in which the United States is a party or has a direct and substantial interest shall be subject to the penalties … 18 U.S.C. § 205.

In a 2001 informal advisory letter, Marilyn Glynn General Counsel for the Office of Government Ethics concluded that these provisions should be seen as prohibiting current government employees from moonlighting as patent attorneys for private paying clients.  But, that opinion was based upon rather weak analysis.

= = =

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found that Correll engaged in improper conduct by representing private clients and concluded that he should be suspended from practice for 5 years.  The USPTO Director then confirmed that judgement.  Correll then took his case to the E.D.Va. District Court who denied his motion for a preliminary injunction. Now, Correll has brought that case to the Federal Circuit.

In the appeal, Correll presents three arguments:

1. The restriction on practice suppresses Correll’s rights of free speech and free association.
2. The USPTO’s broad prohibition improperly reaches beyond what is provided by either statute or rule.  See Van Ee v. Envt’l Protection Agency, 202 F.3d 296 (D.C. Cir. 2000).
3. The district court improperly gave deference to the USPTO’s interpretation of the statutes.

In its briefing, the USPTO makes a big deal its survey that clearly put Correll on notice.

Of course, this type of notice only carries weight if it is also supported by law. If the Federal Circuit is willing to engage, it could become a quite interesting opinion.

Documents:

• Carroll_FedCirPetition
• Carroll_USPTO_OPPOSITION

by Dennis Crouch

Functional claim language has long been a mainstay of U.S. patent law. In the historic case of O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. 62 (1853), the famous inventor of the single-line telegraph (Morse) claimed patent rights to the use of electro-magnetism for transmitting a signal–without limit to any “specific machinery or parts.” Id. The Supreme Court found the claim “too broad and covers too much ground.” Although Morse’s claim directed to a single functionally described element was deemed improper, patent attorneys quickly learned that a combination of functionally-claimed elements could work. An example of this is famously seen in the Wright Brothers early aircraft patents. See US821393.

The Supreme Court pushed-back again on functional claims–perhaps most notably in Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker, 329 U.S. 1 (1946).  In Halliburton, the Supreme Court invalidated Walker’s means-plus-function claims as indefinite after holding that it was improper to claim an invention’s “most crucial element … in terms of what it will do rather than in terms of its own physical characteristics or its arrangement in the new combination apparatus.”  Id. Halliburton can be read as distinguishing between, on the one hand, claim elements that were already well known in the art, and on the other hand entirely new elements.  Well-known functionality will be understood by those skilled in the art as translating to particular machinery or processes.  And, the existence of prior art means that the patent doctrines of obviousness and anticipation will limit unduly broad scope.  On the other hand, newly invented functionality has the potential of resulting in quite broad scope if divorced from the underlying mechanisms of operation.  The Halliburton decision was not a surprise given that the Supreme Court had already repeatedly criticized functional claims.  A good example of that criticism is seen in the 1938 General Electric decision where the court complained about the “vice” of functional claim limitations:

But the vice of a functional claim exists not only when a claim is ‘wholly’ functional, if that is ever true, but also when the inventor is painstaking when he recites what has already been seen, and then uses conveniently functional language at the exact point of novelty.

Gen. Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corp., 304 U.S. 364, 371 (1938).

Halliburton did not stand for long. Rather, the Patent Act of 1952 was expressly designed to overrule Halliburton and revive the use of means-plus-function claims.  The new law, now codified in 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) reads as follows:

(f) ELEMENT IN CLAIM FOR A COMBINATION.—An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.

Id.  You’ll note that the statute does not suggest any difference between well-known or novel elements in their use of means-plus-function language.  One key feature of Section 112(f) is its particularly narrow interpretive scope.  Means-plus-function elements are not interpreted as extending to the full scope suggested by their broad claim language.  Rather, as the statute recites, the scope is “construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.” Id.  Thus, a claim directed toward a “fastening means” appears quite broad on its face as covering all conceivable ways of fastening, but the term would likely be quite narrowly interpreted if the patent specification is also narrowly drafted.  If the specification disclosed a “nail” as its only example, the court would likely limit “fastening means” to only include nails and their equivalents.  Id. (“structure … described in the specification and equivalents thereof.”).

Invalid as Indefinite: Section 112(f) does not tell a court what to do in cases where the specification lacks disclosure of any “corresponding structure.”  The Federal Circuit’s approach is to hold those claims invalid as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). In re Donaldson Co., 16 F.3d 1189 (Fed.Cir.1994) (en banc).  Indefiniteness was also the hook used by the Supreme Court in Halliburton, then codified within Rev. Stat. § 4888.  I am fairly confident that the Supreme Court would affirm the Donaldson precedent if it ever heard such a case. But, as discussed below, this interpretation leads to some seemingly unjust results.

Structure Plus Function: Because of the narrow construction and indefiniteness concern, patent drafters today largely shy-away from using means-plus-function claim language. Still, functional limitations offer powerful exclusive rights if given their full scope. In the marketplace, consumers  ordinarily care more about whether a machine serves its appointed function rather than how it particularly works. A common approach for many skilled patent attorneys is to take advantage of functional limitations while still endeavoring to avoid being categorized as Section 112(f) means-plus-function limitations. This approach is often quite natural as the English language regularly identifies machines and parts by their function: a brake, a processor, a seat.  These terms are inherently functional but are also tied to known mechanical structures.  I call this approach “structure plus function” and it requires a threshold amount of structure sufficient to ensure that the limitation is not MPF. Structure-plus-function regularly results in broader claims than MPF and claims that that are less likely to be invalidated as indefinite. Again, this is nothing new, and they exact type of language discussed by the Supreme Court in its 1938 GE decision. Still, in recent cases the Federal Circuit has been more aggressively putting claims in the Section 112(f) MPF box.  The key case on point is Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, 792 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (en banc).

The MPF rules are particularly pernicious in situations where the claim element at issue is already widely available in various forms.  Since it is already widely available, the inventors (and their patent attorneys) typically feel less need to fully describe and specify particular examples of the well-known element.  That inventor “feeling” is generally supported by strong precedent that a thin specification is appropriate for elements of the invention already known to the public. This well-known-element situation is also outside of the point-of-novelty policy concerns raised by Halliburtan.  So, ordinarily, well known elements need only a thin disclosure within the specification.  An off the shelf-component might not receive any structural disclosure at all other than identifying its name and how it connects-in with the rest of the invention.  BUT, that all changes if the claim element is interpreted as MPF.  If its MPF, the claim scope is limited only to what is disclosed (and equivalents), and a specification without structural disclosure will render the MPF claim invalid as indefinite.  Thus, we have two entirely different drafting approaches that will depend greatly on how the claim is interpreted.  And, following Williamson there is no longer a strong MPF interpretive presumption based upon the presence/absence of traditional MPF language such as “means for.”  What that means practically is that the threshold is high-stakes, but unpredictable.

Recently, the Federal Circuit decided two Section 112(f) cases that push back a bit on Williamson:

• Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp., — 4th —, 2022 WL 870209 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 24, 2022) (“code”, “application” and “system”); and
• VDPP LLC, v. Vizio, Inc., 2022 WL 885771 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 25, 2022) (non-precedential) (“storage” and “processor”).

None of the claim elements at issue in the cases used the word “means” as a signal of intent.  Still, the two district courts interpreted the limitations as written in means-plus-function form. In addition, both district courts concluded that the claims were invalid as indefinite since the specifications lacked disclosure of corresponding structure.

The first step in 112(f) analysis is to determine whether a claim element should be classified as a means-plus-function claim.  The most obvious clue is whether the element is written in traditional means-plus-function style–using the word “means” and also including some functional purpose.  An element that does not use “means” is presumptively not a means-plus-function claim.  However, that presumption is not longer a strong presumption. Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, 792 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (en banc).  And, the presumption can be overcome by a showing that the claim “fails to recite sufficiently definite structure or else recites function without reciting sufficient structure for performing that function.” Id. (internal quotation marks removed).  In addition, “nonce words” are seen as effectively using the word “means.” Id.   Taking all this together, we know that Williamson is a quite important decision. It (1) moved away from a strong presumption against MPF interpretation absent “means” language and (2) established the “nonce word” doctrine. Not surprisingly, the case is the most-cited Federal Circuit decision of 2015.  Still, some members of the court appear to see Williamson as potentially going too far, and that can be seen in the Dyfan and VDPP decisions by Judges Lourie (in both); Dyk, Stoll, Newman, and Taranto.

Claim Construction: The question of whether a claim element is in means-plus-function form is part of claim construction. It is thus the role of the court (rather than a jury) to decide and is ordinarily seen as a question of law with de novo review on appeal.  One exception  to this is comes when a party presents evidence leading to underlying factual  conclusions. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U.S. 318 (2015). Those factual conclusions are given deference on appeal.  Id. In some cases, the factual conclusions may conceivably so intertwine with the legal conclusions that the ultimate claim construction should also be treated as a mixed-question of law and fact and thus given deference on appeal.  (This last sentence should be seen as my speculation on the correct rule rather than black-letter caselaw.)

In most situations, claim construction is purely a question of law and comes-in most commonly when the parties are endeavoring to show the level of understanding of a person of skill in the art (POSA).  For MPF interpretation, this type of expert factual evidence appears to be more common than ordinary claim construction as the parties endeavor to show that a particular claim element would be understood as connoting “structure.” See Zeroclick, LLC v. Apple Inc., 891 F.3d 1003 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

Dyfan’s patents are directed to location-based triggers in mobile phones. Coincidentally, I used my idea of this technology in my internet law course recently in our discussion of privacy law–imagining Ads pop-ups based upon a user’s particular micro-location. In our example here, imagine that as you walk near the vacuum cleaner aisle of Target, your phone receives a “targeted” vacuum cleaner advert or coupon.

The Dyfan claim is directed to a “system” and requires “code” to cause a mobile device to output “visual information” based upon “location-relevant information.”  The claim’s “wherein” clause requires certain timing of the outputs (automatic output of visual information after receiving a communication receipt but without requiring a separate “first message”).  The wherein clause ties itself to the “system” (“wherein the system is configured…”) and does not state if the action is also done by the code. Thus, the courts identified this clause as the “system” element.

The district court found these two claimed elements to lack “structure” and therefore interpreted them as MPF elements.  At step two, district court examined the disclosure documents found no corresponding structure within the specification.  The result then is that the Code and System elements were un-construable and the entire claim invalid as indefinite.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded–holding that the district court had improperly shifted the burden to the patentee to prove that the elements were not MPF.  This presumption of no-MPF exists because the claims did not use the term “means.” In its decision, the appellate court began in an odd way by stating that overcoming the presumption requires “a preponderance of the evidence.”  I call this ‘odd’ because preponderance of the evidence is the standard used for questions of fact rather than questions of law. As I mentioned, claim construction has been repeatedly deemed a question of law except for limited circumstances.  Here though, there was expert testimony that those skilled in the art would understand “code” to be a particular term of art that encompasses a computer program, and that “off-the-shelf-software” was available to perform the specific function claimed.  On appeal, the Federal Circuit began with a presumption that the code was not-MPF, and that presumption was further solidified by the unrebutted testimony indicating structure.  As part of this, the appellate panel also rejected the notion that the code limitation was “purely functional.”

The system limitation is a bit more complicated — certainly the “system” has structure.  The claim actually requires that the system include a physical building. But, the claim also requires that the system be “configured such that” messages are sent in a particular order and based upon particular triggers.  “A system comprising . . . wherein the system is configured such that . . . .”  Section 112 speaks in terms of an “element”, and the court was faced with the question of whether (1) the system itself is the element, or instead (2) the element is the sub-part of the system that performs the claimed function.  On appeal, the Federal Circuit did not decide this question, but instead held that the claims provide sufficient structure either way.  The court particularly noted that the aforementioned ‘code’ is part of the system and it it is pretty clear that the code would be doing the work here as well.

Although the wherein clause does not expressly refer to the previously recited “code,” it references specific functions that are defined or introduced in the code limitations and thus demonstrates that it is the code that performs the function recited in the wherein clause.

Slip Op. Since these claim elements included sufficient structure, the appellate panel concluded that they were not written in means-plus-function form. And, as a consequence the indefiniteness ruling

VDPP is non-precedential, but reaches the same results. And, although decided only one-day after Dyfan, it favorably cites that decision and particularly the shifting of burdens and evidentiary requirements.  VDPP’s patents relate to technology for blending 2-D video streams so that they appear 3-D. US9699444B2 claim 1 is directed to “an apparatus” having two elements: (1) a storage and (2) a processor.  The storage is “adapted to store one or more frames.”  The processor has a number of  claimed functions, including obtaining and expanding an image; creating a ‘bridge frame’ that is a “non-solid color”; and blending various frames for display.   The patent has a 2001 priority date, and the claims here have shifted substantially to capture market development.

The C.D.Cal. district court determined that VDPP’s claimed  “processor” and “storage” elements were both subject to § 112(f) since they “do not describe how to carry out the recited functions—only that they do” somehow accomplish those functions.  That statement appears almost lifted from Halliburton’s definition of means-plus-function claiming.  In another pithy restatement of its conclusions, the district court also identified each term as a “black box for performance of a function.” On appeal the Federal Circuit reversed–holding that the “processor” and “storage” elements contained sufficient structure.

In the case, the district court “summarily concluded that the limitations [were] subject to § 112(f).”  On appeal, the Federal Circuit found that erroneous because claims without the “means” term are presumed to not be MPF.  This issue here seems to get to the heart of the nonce-word debate. My understanding of ‘nonce words’ is that they are presumed to be MPF triggers.  Thus, the district court’s opinion appears to be based on its conclusion that the processor and storage are “nothing more than
nonce words.”  On appeal, however, the Federal Circuit took a different path. Rather than starting with the nonce work question, the court began with the presumption of no-MPF absent the word “means.”  The court then quoted Dyfan’s statement that overcoming the presumption requires evidence.

Vizio was required to provide at least some evidence that a person of ordinary skill
would not have understood the limitations to ‘recite sufficiently definite structure[s].’

Slip Op. (quoting Dyfan).  The district court had avoided this presumption by identifying the terms as nonce words. That approach was apparently wrong: “The court pointed to no such evidence from Vizio, instead summarily concluding that the limitations are subject to § 112(f). . . That is insufficient to overcome the presumption
against application of § 112(f).” Perhaps the best way to reconcile the developed doctrine here is that a district court should not identify a word as a ‘nonce’ word based upon reasoning alone. Rather, that determination requires some sort of evidence.  In VDPP, the court again referred back to Dyfan and shows district courts how to cite the case:

Vizio’s arguments are particularly unpersuasive in view of our holding in Dyfan. In Dyfan, the district court determined that the limitations “code” and “application” were subject to 112(f).
We reversed the district court’s construction of those terms (among others), explaining that the court did not give effect to the presumption against § 112(f). More specifically, we held that the defendant failed to show “that persons of ordinary skill in the art would not have understood the ‘code’/‘application’ limitations to connote structure in light of the claim as a whole.” That same rationale applies here. As explained above, the court ignored that it was Vizio’s burden to rebut the presumption against § 112(f), and Vizio failed to meet that burden.

Slip Op.  I’ll just note that this type of talk of ‘presumption’ and presumably external ‘evidence’ is radically different from how the court usually discusses claim construction.  Rather, claim construction is a question of law where we are searching for the proper construction.  Typically neither party has a burden of proving a question of law.

In VDPP, the district court also pointed to evidence presented that the storage and processor are known structural forms.  The patentee had fallen into the pernicious trap noted above by explaining in the specification that that “processors” and “storage” are “well-known” in the art.  Here, the court concluded that the specification statement that these are “well known” provides good evidence that the terms were not intended as MPF (without further elaboration or explanation of the reasoning here).

The one problem with the court’s analysis in VDPP is that it implicitly concludes that the “processor” counts as the “element” for MPF analysis.  But, the claim is directed to a particular function, not simply a “processor for processing.” Here, for instance, the claim requires “a processor adapted to: obtain a first image frame from a
first video stream; ….” Although a general processor may be well known, a processor “adapted” as claimed was not well known in the art, and the question that the court needs to ask with regard to structure is whether the claim itself provides the structure for performing the recited function.

As you can see, this area is ripe with historical confusion, statutory bright lines, and shifting precedent.  I expect that the court will continue to develop precedent, but I expect that this pair of cases will begin to tone-down the impact of Williamson while also shifting litigation tactics.

by Dennis Crouch

By the time the Federal Circuit opines about a particular patent, that patent is usually at least 8 years old (median). I was wondering about the shortest time from patent-issuance to Federal Circuit written decision.  The fastest I could find (for the past decade) is M-I LLC v. FPUSA, LLC, 626 F. App’x 995 (Fed. Cir. September 24, 2015) (non-precedential).

M-I’s US9004288 issued Apr. 14, 2015 and directed to a system for recovering drilling fluid by using an improved “shaker.”  A month later, May 15, 2015, M-I sued FPUSA for patent infringement in W.D.Tex and requested a preliminary injunction.  The district court reviewed the equitable factors and granted the preliminary injunction on June 24, 2015. As was its right, FPUSA immediately appealed — filing its notice of appeal five days later along with a motion to expedite.  The Federal Circuit granted that motion.  Appellate was complete on September 8, and the court heard oral arguments on September 16.  Eight days later, the court released Judge Hughes 7-page non-precedential opinion that affirmed-in-part.  In particular, the court agreed that the preliminary injunction was proper, but concluded that the district court should have more carefully prescribed the scope.  “[T]he preliminary injunction is overbroad … As we have previously held, broad injunctions that merely instruct the enjoined party not to infringe are improper because such an order frustrates the remedy of contempt.” Id.

Total time from patent issuance to written decision: 163 days.

Note – This data comes from my own compilation of patent data combined with some of Prof. Rantanen’s work available here: Jason Rantanen, “Federal Circuit Docket Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EKSYHL, Harvard Dataverse, V3 (2021).  I’ll note that these are preliminary statistics and so it is possible that there is another case with a faster opinion.

= = =

One of the longest-delays from the past several years is found in Dome Patent LP v. Lee, 799 F.3d 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2015).  The patent at issue there was granted in 1981, almost 34 years before the appellate decision. US4306042 (Oxygen permeable contact lens material).  Dome had filed the infringement lawsuit in 1997 — not much before the time of patent expiration.  The defendants sent the patent through reexamination. After losing at the PTO on obviousness, the patentee filed a civil action to confirm patentability (this is no longer allowed for reexams). That whole process took more than a decade to resolve.  Finally in 2015, the Federal Circuit affirmed — holding the claims invalid as obvious.

New pending petition for certiorari in Interactive Wearables, LLC v. Polar Electro Oy, 21-1281 (Supreme Court 2022) on patent eligibility grounds.

Question presented:

The patents-in-suit are directed to an electronics hardware device comprising a content player/remote-control combination having numerous concretely-recited components that undisputedly qualifies as a “machine” or “manufacture” under the statutory language of 35 U.S.C. § 101. Nevertheless, the court below found the claims of the patents-in-suit invalid under Section 101, on a motion to dismiss, for claiming nothing more than the abstract idea of “providing information in conjunction with media content.”

As a justification for disregarding each recited structural component from its characterization of what the claims are “directed to,” the court resorted to a factual, enablement-style analysis of the level of detail in the specification and declared it insufficient to support patentability.

The questions presented are:

1. What is the appropriate standard for determining whether a patent claim is “directed to” a patent-ineligible concept under step one of the Court’s two-step framework for determining whether an invention is eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101? [Repeat of American Axle question presented]

2. Is patent eligibility (at each step of the Court’s two-step framework) a question of law for the court based on the scope of the claims or a question of fact for the jury based on the state of art at the time of the patent? [Repeat of American Axle question presented]

3. Is it proper to apply 35 U.S.C. § 112 considerations to determine whether a patent claims eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101? [New question]

In the case, the E.D.N.Y. district court dismissed the infringement lawsuit at the pleading stage — holding that the asserted claims were ineligible as a matter of law.  On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed with a R.36 opinion-free judgment.

Documents:

• Petition
• Appendix (including the R.36 judgment and also the District Court dismissal opinion).
• Patents at issue: United States Patent Numbers 9,668,016 and 10,264,311 (1999 priority dates).

Editors note – I invited Professor Nina Mendelson (University of Michigan Law School) to author a guest post after reading her 2020 Admin. Law Review article titled “The Permissibility of Acting Officials: May the President Work Around Senate Confirmation?”  The revived Arthrex case raises temporary appointments issues and asks whether Dir. Hirshfeld has the legal power to fulfill the expanded job as required by the Supreme Court’s decision. — Dennis Crouch

Guest post by Nina Mendelson,

Following one Supreme Court decision posing dangers for the integrity of all sorts of agency adjudication, the ongoing litigation in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, set for argument in the Federal Circuit next week on remand from the Court, may well spawn another ruling with important implications for the administrative state. That is the question of how much latitude agencies have to operate notwithstanding vacancies in principal officer positions. This post will cover the major statutory and constitutional questions raised in the case.

(1) The litigation background.

In Arthrex, a case arising out of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s invalidation of Arthrex’s patent claims, the Court’s majority found a constitutional violation in the statute’s allocation of inter partes review authority to the administrative patent judges (for the most part not-Senate-confirmed) who serve on PTAB, reasoning in part that, to assure political accountability, a Senate-confirmed principal officer must have final decision authority. A different coalition of Justices agreed on the remedy of severing the statutory review constraint on the PTAB’s inter partes review decisions. The Court figured this ruling would leave the Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed US Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) Director with full review authority in those cases.  (My colleague Rebecca Eisenberg and I have criticized United States v. Arthrex and its implications over at the Notice and Comment blog.)

Problem not solved, unfortunately.  Along with many other positions across the government requiring Senate confirmation, the USPTO Director post has been vacant since President Biden’s inauguration, now 14 months ago. Recent years have seen substantial delays in both presidential appointment and Senate confirmation of top officials, with plenty of blame to go around for widespread vacancies.

President Biden finally nominated Kathi Vidal as the next USPTO Director on January 13, 2022, and her confirmation is pending in the Senate. Meanwhile, Commissioner of Patents Drew Hirshfeld, appointed by the Secretary of Commerce and not Senate-confirmed, is presently claiming the office’s authority pursuant to a 2016 document executed by the then-USPTO Director Michelle Lee. The document, relying on the Director’s general management supervision authority, purports to grant the Commissioner of Patents the authority to carry out the “non-exclusive functions and duties” of the USPTO Director if both the Director and Deputy Director posts are vacant. On the agency’s website, Hirshfeld is not described as “acting USPTO Director,” but instead as “performing the functions and duties of the . . . Director.” In that capacity, Hirshfeld denied review of the PTAB decision invalidating Arthrex’s patent claims on October 15, 2021.

The parties have asked the Federal Circuit to address whether Hirshfeld’s claim to act based on the delegation document violates the main statute authorizing the selection and service of acting officials, which is the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (“FVRA”) of 1998, or the Appointments Clause. A lot turns on this issue, because, as I and others have written elsewhere, this tactic has been increasingly used to fill vacancies in Senate-confirmed posts without complying with the FVRA’s restrictions on “acting officials.” Officials have relied recently on delegations to claim the power to lead the Social Security Administration, Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, not to mention to serve as the Deputy Director of Homeland Security. The result is a significant corps of shadow acting officials who use a title something like Hirshfeld’s:  not, “Acting Director” or “Acting Secretary,” say, but instead, “Performing the Duties and Functions of the [USPTO] Director.” Perhaps unlike Hirshfeld, these officials may have little experience and may claim the ability to serve long past the FVRA’s time limits. Professors Jody Freeman and Sharon Jacobs have characterized this practice as among those making agency personnel overly vulnerable to inappropriate Presidential staffing decisions. The Federal Circuit has an unusual opportunity to assess its legality.

(2) The statutory issue.

Under the FVRA, the most recent iteration of the federal vacancies law first enacted in 1868, Congress carefully delimited who can serve as an “acting officer,” and for how long, when a Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed (“PAS”) post is vacant. Appointments and confirmation take time under the best of circumstances, and Presidents need some ability to ensure the government can continue to operate. The FVRA authorizes acting service in a vacant PAS post by a “first assistant” or else a Presidentially-selected senior agency official (GS-15 level or the equivalent) or other official Senate-confirmed for a different post. The FVRA allows an acting official to serve for 210 days, extended to 300 days after a President’s first inauguration (or while a nomination is pending in the Senate and in some other circumstances).  But Hirshfeld is not qualified to “act” under these categories. He is not a “first assistant.” And although he likely was eligible to act under the FVRA as a senior agency official, the President did not select him.

Does the 2016 USPTO document authorize Hirshfeld to act even if the FVRA does not?  The FVRA’s main text suggests it cannot, because the statute’s “exclusivity provision” states that the statute is the “exclusive means for temporarily authorizing an acting official,” except for another statute “expressly” authorizing an acting official. The exclusivity provision specifically bars reliance on a statute “providing general authority” to an agency head to “delegate” or “reassign” duties. The FVRA’s legislative context also supports the conclusion that the delegation strategy is impermissible. At the time Congress took up the vacancies law for reform, Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno had invoked the Justice Department’s organic statute to delegate the responsibilities of the Solicitor General and multiple Assistant Attorneys General, offices requiring Senate confirmation, to individuals whom the Senate had declined to confirm. That raised Congress’s ire. Besides the FVRA’s “exclusivity” provision discussed above, legislative history included statements that the bill was meant to clarify that this sort of reliance on general management statutes was foreclosed, (see p. 17), and to “restore [the] constitutionally mandated procedures” of Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation (see p. 8).

Some have argued that other language in the FVRA nonetheless implicitly permits the delegation strategy.  The argument here is based on the FVRA’s complex enforcement provision, 5 U.S.C. 3348. Section 3348 specifies – bear with me here — that an action taken “in the performance of any function or duty” that is not in conformity with the FVRA “shall have no force or effect” and, furthermore, may not be ratified later by a legally serving officer. But Section 3348 then defines “function or duty” “[i]n this section” as “any function or duty” that is “established by statute [or regulation]”—and “required by statute [or regulation] to be performed by the applicable officer (and only that officer).” For such a function or duty, the enforcement provision specifies that if the office is vacant, “only the head of such Executive agency” may perform it. Defenders of the delegation strategy have pointed out that the “required . . . to be performed by the applicable officer (and only that officer)” language means that the enforcement provision voids only nondelegable functions when carried out by an improperly selected official. In spite of statutory text limiting the special “function or duty” definition to “this [enforcement] section” (rather than the entire Act), delegation defenders go on to argue that delegable functions should be understood as broadly exempt from all the FVRA’s requirements. On that view, responsibilities of a vacant Senate-confirmed office may be delegated to any official notwithstanding the Act, unless they are functions vested by a statute or regulation in a particular “officer (and only that officer).” The government persuaded the D.C. Circuit to accept this argument in one recent case, but in a different agency setting, a D.C. district judge saw things differently. The main selling point of such a reading is that it would surely increase the flexibility of agency heads to get the government’s work done notwithstanding confirmation delays. Its advocates also claim support in some legislative history statements (e.g., p. 18).

On the other hand, legitimating the delegation strategy could largely eliminate the FVRA’s application and undercut the President’s incentive to formally appoint PAS officials and seek Senate confirmation. This is because courts have repeatedly found subdelegation of agency functions to be presumptively permissible, whether by statute or regulation. Meanwhile, statutory and regulatory provisions that restrict such delegations by assigning duties exclusively to a particular officer are very rare. This reading also would make trivial the language in the Act’s exclusivity provision specifically barring reliance on general delegation statutes. It would render the FVRA ineffective to address the concerns that motivated the 1998 Congress–the Clinton Administration Justice Department’s use of delegations to empower unconfirmed officials to carry out PAS office responsibilities. Some might be concerned that the FVRA would not be enforceable against delegations of PAS office authority because its main enforcement provisions apply to nondelegable functions. But the FVRA’s enforcement provision is not the sole means of enforcing the FVRA. Courts can set aside any agency action taken by unauthorized officials as contrary to law under the Administrative Procedure Act, though the action could still be upheld if it were ratified later by a properly serving official, as one federal district judge has explained.

(Arthrex also argues that the Court’s holding requiring a principal officer decision renders the USPTO Director’s review authority statutorily nondelegable under the FVRA, so that Hirshfeld cannot receive the authority by delegation. This argument is unpersuasive, however, because the Arthrex holding establishing directorial review is rooted in the Appointments Clause. The opinion eliminates statutory language rather than interpreting it.)

In assessing the challenge to Commissioner Hirshfeld’s review of the PTAB’s invalidation of Arthrex’s patent claims, the Federal Circuit thus has an important opportunity to weigh in on whether agencies can legally delegate around vacant PAS offices, without concern for the qualifications of the official or the length of time they serve, or whether, instead, the FVRA precludes the creation of such shadow acting officials.

All this said, if the Senate confirms Kathi Vidal as USPTO Director soon, the Administration has a chance to make this statutory issue disappear. Because the statute and regulations do not appear to preclude a USPTO Director from revisiting review of a PTAB decision, Vidal could independently reconsider and potentially ratify the October 15, 2021, Hirshfeld decision rejecting directorial review of the PTAB decision invalidating Arthrex’s patents.

(3)  The constitutional issue.

Arthrex also challenges Hirshfeld’s service as an Appointments Clause violation. Despite that clause’s requirement of Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation for principal officers, constitutional doctrine has long tolerated at least some “acting” service by unconfirmed officials. Although the courts have yet to decide precisely how much service the Appointments Clause permits—or for how long—the likelihood that Arthrex will succeed in establishing a constitutional violation is small. The leading Supreme Court decision, United States v. Eaton, decided in 1898, approved as constitutional an unconfirmed acting general consul’s service in Bangkok. The consul general took a leave of absence for illness, and a missionary was designated to “act” by the consul general (with the State Department’s approval) for roughly ten months until a properly commissioned vice consul arrived. The Court upheld the acting officer’s service in the principal officer role as constitutional, noting that the officer was doing the work “under special and temporary conditions.” (The Court later described the acting official as a properly serving inferior officer.)

The precedential reach of Eaton today is unclear. Although the Court permitted ten months of acting service in Eaton, one might consider consular work comparatively lower impact and the need to cover the post significant, given the difficulties of travel from the U.S. to Bangkok at the time. Perhaps ten months of acting service would not be constitutionally tolerable for highly consequential domestic positions. But Justice Roberts, writing for a majority in National Labor Relations Board v. SW General, also commented that the FVRA represents “Congress . . . account[ing] for [the] reality” that a Senate-confirmed office’s responsibilities may go unperformed if a vacancy arises, thus giving the President “limited authority to appoint acting officials to temporarily perform” those responsibilities. (emphasis added). This was dicta, since the Court found that the service of the official in question violated the FVRA and did not reach the Appointments Clause issue. But the Court may have been hinting that the FVRA’s identification of eligible acting officials and minimum authorization of 210 days of service might be generally constitutionally acceptable. Justice Thomas, concurring, was the only Justice to argue that the official’s service of more than three years without Senate confirmation should be considered an Appointments Clause violation as well. Lower court rulings have offered little guidance, generally rejecting Appointments Clause challenges to acting officials, although one district court found an Appointments Clause violation in an unconfirmed official running the Bureau of Land Management for fourteen months pursuant to a delegation document that the court also found to be invalid.

In this case, Hirshfeld’s significant power to decide, unilaterally, the validity of patent claims challenged in inter partes review weighs in favor of a stricter reading of the Appointments Clause. Hirshfeld is not Senate-confirmed even in the Commissioner position. On the other hand, Hirshfeld is not exercising Cabinet-level powers, and President Biden submitted a nomination for Senate consideration less than a year after Hirshfeld began exercising the Director’s powers. Other officials serving based on delegation documents have served far longer than Hirshfeld. A ruling that Hirshfeld’s service violates the Appointments Clause could disrupt the operation of numerous agency offices, since many officials have served for similarly lengthy periods. I have argued that the Appointments Clause ought be interpreted to permit only very short periods of acting service for Cabinet-level principal officers and roughly four months for below-Cabinet-level principal officers such as the Director, far shorter than Hirshfeld’s service. But under current doctrine, as vague as it is, Arthrex’s Appointments Clause argument looks to be a long shot. If Kathi Vidal is confirmed and undertakes an independent review of the PTAB’s decision on the Arthrex patent claims, that may obviate the need to address the Appointments Clause issue altogether.

Otherwise, however, the Arthrex litigation is one of the rare cases in which a court may have the opportunity to address the legality of the in-the-weeds strategy of delegating powers around vacant PAS offices. To make the FVRA effective and to encourage the President’s proper use of the confirmation process, the Federal Circuit should interpret the FVRA to prohibit the practice.

Nina A. Mendelson is the Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. 

Does the Temporary PTO Director have Arthrex Authority?

by Dennis Crouch

Cisco Systems v. SRI Int’l. (Supreme Court 2022) [Petition for Writ of Certiorari]

In a new petition for writ of certiorari, Cisco asks for guidance on whether enhanced damages under Section 284 require “egregious infringement behavior” or instead is it enough to find “deliberate or intentional infringement?”

The case has been up and down already.  Here are the basics:

• Jury Verdict: A jury sided with the patentee SRI over Cisco and awarded $23 million in damages and also found the infringement willful.
• Enhanced Damages: Although the jury decided willfulness, the award of enhanced damages is done by the judge.  Here, the district court relied upon the jury verdict and doubled the damage award as permitted by 35 U.S.C. § 284.
• Vacated on Appeal: In 2019, the Federal Circuit vacated — holding that the district court must focus on whether the infringer’s conduct was the “wanton, malicious, and bad-faith behavior required for willful infringement.”
• 2nd-Chance No Enhanced Damages: On remand, the district court recognized saw heightened standard and concluded that the evidence presented was not sufficient to meet this seemingly new requirement.
• Reversed on Appeal: Back on appeal in 2021, the Federal Circuit clarified that it had no intent to create a heightened requirement in its first opinion of the case: “it was not our intent to create a heightened requirement for willful infringement.”  Thus, the court reinstated the jury’s finding of willfulness, and  also reinstated the judicial award of enhanced damages.
• Supreme Court: The new petition asks two questions “(1) Whether enhanced damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284 may be awarded absent a finding of egregious infringement behavior; and (2) Whether the court of appeals may award enhanced damages without first allowing the district court to exercise its discretion to decide that issue.“

The starting point for enhanced damages should begin with the statutory text found in 35 U.S.C. § 284.   The text is simple and open ended and does not place any substantive limitations on the court about when damages may be enhanced: “the court may increase the damages up to three times the amount found or assessed.” § 284.  Section 284 should be contrasted with Section 285, which allows for award of attorney fees to the prevailing party, but only in “exceptional cases.”

The Supreme Court discussed enhanced damages in some depth in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., 579 U.S. 93 (2016).  In that case, the Supreme Court rejected the Federal Circuit’s somewhat rigid two-part test for enhanced damages in favor of a more flexible approach coupled with district court discretion.  The court’s “principal problem” with prior Federal Circuit precedent was “that it require[d] a finding of objective recklessness in every case before district courts may award enhanced damages.”  In Halo, the court noted that the objectively reckless standard meant that “many of the most culpable offenders”, “deliberate wrongdoers” could be excluded from punishment by cobbling together an excuse after-the-fact.  The court cited to its old precedent in Seymour v. McCormick, 16 How. 480 (1854) – focusing on punishing the “wanton and malicious pirate” who intentionally steals the patentee’s business.

For the most part, the old cases cited by the Supreme Court generally focus on “wanton and willful breaches” by the defendant as justification for enhanced damages.  Thus, we generally speak of enhanced damages only in terms of “willful infringement.” Some old cases used enhanced damages for full compensation, but the Supreme Court in Halo concluded that those justifications were eliminated by the merger of Law & Equity and the availability of attorney fees under Section 285.

With this background, the adjudged infringer here argues that it should not be held liable since – as the district court held, “[t]here is no substantial evidence that Cisco’s infringement was ‘wanton, malicious, and bad-faith.’”  The argument here was that the jury’s verdict of willfulness was wrong as a matter of law.  On appeal, the Federal Circuit concluded that a jury can find willfulness absent any showing of maliciousness or bad faith.  Rather, a jury verdict of willfulness can instead be supported by evidence of  “deliberate or intentional infringement.”  Here, evidence of knowledge of the patent followed by induced infringement and then coupled with weak trial defenses were sufficient for a reasonable jury to find the infringement willful.

The enhanced damages does not mention willfulness, but the courts have agreed that willfulness is a primary justification for enhancing damages. The ordinary procedure in these cases is that the judge permits the jury to determine willfulness and then  the judge herself decides whether to enhance damages.  The Cisco decision does not delve deeply into this, but the Halo could be read as requiring that the judge find that the defendant was culpable beyond simply intentionally infringing.  “The sort of conduct warranting enhanced damages has been variously described in our cases as willful, wanton, malicious, bad-faith, deliberate, consciously wrongful, flagrant, or—indeed—characteristic of a pirate.”

In Cisco, the district court identified additional reasons beyond just willful infringement: “Cisco’s litigation conduct, its status as the world’s largest networking company, its apparent disdain for SRI and its business model, and the fact that Cisco lost on all issues during summary judgment and trial, despite its formidable efforts to the contrary.”  On appeal, the Federal Circuit found those reasons sufficient for doubling the damage award even without a finding that the infringement was more egregious than your typical willful infringement.

[UPDATED on 4/3/2002 – Thanks to Prof. Tom Cotter for pointing out an error in my prior analysis.]

= = =

One note: the jury was instructed to only find willfulness upon “clear and convincing evidence” that the “defendant actually knew or should have known that its actions constituted an unjustifiably high risk of infringement of a valid and enforceable patent.”

= = = 

Congratulations and hearty welcome to Judge Leonard P. Stark who was sworn in today as #40.  The 40th Judge appointed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  The court is now back up to its full complement of 12 circuit court judges along with 7 judges on senior status.

The court released a photo showing Chief Judge Kimberly Moore administering the oath of office.  Judge Stark’s biography is available on the court’s website.

by Dennis Crouch

The USPTO Chief Economist Andrew Toole and his team have just released a new report on Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy. Prior reports were issued in 2012 and 2016.

IP-intensive industries account for 41% of domestic economic activity and about 44% of US jobs. And, those jobs have higher wages, better benefits, etc — especially in the copyright and utility patent intensive industries.  The report itself includes an appendix explaining how it categorized these industries.

The report endeavors to provide solid information without over-claiming — for instance, the report does not attempt to discern the economic impact of IP rights themselves but rather focuses on industry level impacts.