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Get a Job doing Patent Law
Panel K: Thursday, July 09, 2015, 2:00 P.M., Courtroom 201
Judges: Newman, Linn, & O’Malley
15-1701 DCT Smartflash LLC v. Apple Inc.
link to oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov
In a case involving a number of computer-implemented “business method” patents that had been pending for years, Apple begin filing a series of CBM’s last year after Alice was decided, 36 total, but Apple did not inform the trial judge that they had filed any. The case was tried to a jury and I presume, but I do not know, that the jury did not find the patents invalid. Currently, the damages await retrial. But as observed by the Federal Circuit during oral argument, the case seems to be final on the merits and may currently be appealable to the Federal Circuit. Strangely, the patent owner did not agree on this point.
At this juncture, after trial, the PTO granted at least one of the CBM’s, and Apple moved to stay the entire case. Because the merits issue had been decided by the jury, the trial court denied the stay.
The attorney for the patent owner repeatedly accused Apple of abuse of process claiming that the purpose CPS and other postgrant reviews was to reduce litigation costs and that by filing these CBM’s without even informing the District Court of what they were doing indicated that Apple was trying to get as many bites at the “apple” as they could, conserving court resources and expenses be damned. Apple responded that they had a legal right to do what they did and that great lawyering is not an abuse of process.
What the Federal Circuit does here is going to be fascinating, particularly in the view that there is a jury verdict and that there is a seventh amendment — although the patent owner did not raise a constitutional issue at oral argument.
For more on the Apple case, see the Susan Decker story linked in the Post.
It looks like Apple is going to win — the Feds entered an emergency stay pending apple just after oral argument.
Thanks for the update, Ned. Presumably the case against Samsung is also stayed (oral arguments were heard the same day).
I appreciate all the effort you’re putting into this bro but I think you hit the nail on the head with:
“(a) an absurd result;”
Which is what you’d have us led to.
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