In a significant decision with implications for patent litigation practice, the Federal Circuit has vacated both infringement and damages judgments totaling $300 million in Optis Cellular Technology v. Apple Inc., finding multiple errors by the Eastern District of Texas that undermined the validity of the jury's verdict. Judge Prost's opinion identified four distinct areas of reversible error:

1. Improper verdict form construction that violated Apple's Seventh Amendment right to jury unanimity,
2. Incorrect patent eligibility analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 101,
3. Erroneous means-plus-function determination under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6, and
4. Abuse of discretion in admitting prejudicial settlement evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 403.

Optis asserted several standard-essential patents (SEPs) covering Long-Term Evolution (LTE; aka 4G) technology against various Apple devices including iPhones, iPads, and Watches. After an initial jury verdict awarding $506.2 million, the district court granted a new trial on damages only, finding that the jury had not heard evidence regarding Optis's FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations. The second jury awarded $300 million as a lump sum for past and future sales.

Competing jury form proposals
(patentee in green; accused in blue): 

Single Broad Verdict Form from Judge Gilstrap

How Much is Hidden in the Jury Black Box: Patent cases are extremely complicated. And, this one involved five separate patents, including allegations of both literal and DOE infringement, willful infringement, and invalidity. In situations like this, district court judges look for ways to simplify the jury decision making. Judges often have legitimate concern that lay jurors will be overwhelmed by highly technical claim constructions and complex infringement theories across multiple patents, potentially leading to decisions based on confusion rather than careful consideration of the evidence. And, judges worry that overly detailed verdict forms increase the risk of logically inconsistent findings, which can complicate post-trial proceedings and create appellate complications.

by Dennis Crouch

The Federal Circuit's AI-patent decision this week affirmed a district court's dismissal of the claims as ineligible, holding that "generic" machine learning technology is itself an abstract idea. Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., No. 2023-2437 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 18, 2025).

In its decision, the court acknowledged the growing importance of machine learning, and exerted some care in limiting its holding:

Machine learning is a burgeoning and increasingly important field and may lead to patent-eligible improvements in technology. Today, we hold only that patents that do no more than claim the application of generic machine learning to new data environments, without disclosing improvements to the machine learning models to be applied, are patent ineligible under § 101.

At oral arguments, the patenee's attorney Robert Fredrickson (Goodwin) explained that one reason his client did not claim a new algorithm is that it would have raised 101 issues:

This wasn't an invention of a new machine learning technique, because that would fall into another one of this court's section 101 traps, is if the claim is improving the mathematical algorithm or making machine learning better, then we're claiming the natural law, the mathematical algorithm itself.

That question --  scope of protection for new machine learning algorithms -- will be left for another day.

by Dennis Crouch

The Supreme Court has not granted certiorari in any patent cases this term. But the 2024 docket includes a number of important petitions -- some focusing on procedural issues and others on fundamental patent law questions. Here is a quick review of those currently pending before the high court:

By Dennis Crouch

The Supreme Court will soon consider whether to review what I see as an important Federal Circuit decision finding personal jurisdiction based solely on a patentee's use of Amazon's private patent enforcement system. In Lighting Def. Grp. LLC v. SnapRays LLC, No. 24-524 (petition filed Nov. 5, 2024), Arizona-based LDG submitted a patent infringement complaint against Utah-based SnapPower through Amazon's Washington-based Patent Evaluation Express (APEX) program.  To be clear: this is a private arbitration system that relates to selling on Amazon - it is not a federal court case.  Under APEX, Amazon notifies accused sellers who have three weeks to either participate in Amazon's evaluation process, settle with the patent owner, or file a declaratory judgment action - otherwise their listings are removed.

SnapPower sued in Utah federal court seeking a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity. However, the district court dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction since LDG (an AZ company) had no contacts with Utah. On appeal, the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that LDG's use of the APEX system knowing it would affect SnapPower's Utah operations was sufficient to create jurisdiction there. The cert petition argues this conflicts with Supreme Court precedent requiring contacts with "the forum State itself, not the defendant's contacts with persons who reside there." Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 277 (2014).