by Dennis Crouch
The Supreme Court has completed its patent law business for the 2015 term and will re-open decision making in September 2016. Briefing and new filings will, however, continue throughout the summer.
Two Decisions: The Supreme Court has decided its two major patent cases - Halo/Stryker and Cuozzo. In Halo, the court re-opened the door to more treble-damage awards for willful patent infringement. The decision rejects the objective-recklessness standard of Seagate (Fed. Cir. 2007)(en banc) and instead places substantial discretion in the hands of district court judges for determining the appropriate sactions "egregious infringement behavior.” In Cuozzo, the court affirmed the Federal Circuit's pro-PTO decision. The decisions confirms the PTO's authority construe claims according to their broadest-reasonable-construction (BRI) even during post-issuance review proceedings and also confirms the Federal Circuit ruling that the PTO's initiation of an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding is not appealable (even after final decision). A major caveat of this appealability issue is that the court limited its holding to run-of-the-mill IPR patent issues. The court did not determine when other issues arising from institution, such as constitutional due process challenges, might be appealable.
Both decisions are important. Halo adds at least a gentle breeze to the would-be patent infringement armada. I heard many discussions of pendulum's swinging in the days following the case, although I would not go quite so far. Cuozzo was a full affirmance of the PTO position and will operate to continue to raise the statute and importance of the agency.
Three Pending Cases Set the Stage for Next Term: With the certiorari writ grant in Life Tech v. Promega, we now have three patent cases set for review and judgment next term. The issue in Life Tech is fairly narrow and involves export of of a component of a patented invention for combination in a would-be-infringing manner abroad. The statute requires export of a "substantial portion of the components" and the question in the case is whether export of one component can legally constitute that "substantial portion." In the case, the component (Taq) is a commodity but is also an admitted critical aspect of the invention. Life Tech may be most interesting for those generally interested in international U.S. law (i.e., extraterritorial application of U.S. law). The other two pending cases are Samsung v. Apple (special damages in design patent cases) and SCA Hygiene (laches defense in patent cases).
None of these three pending cases are overwhelmingly important in the grand scheme of the patent system, although Samsung is fundamental to the sub-genre of design patents. This week, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Sequenom v. Ariosa - a case that some thought might serve to rationalize patent eligibility doctrine in a way that favors patentees. For now, the Mayo, Alice, _____ trilogy remains open-ended. This leaves the Federal Circuit in its nadir.
Following Cuozzo, the only AIA post-issue review cases still ongoing are Cooper and MCM. These cases raise US Constitutional issues that were expressly not decided in Cuozzo. Briefing is ongoing in MCM and one scenario is that the court will sit on Cooper and then grant/deny the pair together. A new petition was filed by Trading Technologies just before Cuozzo was released - the case focuses on a mandamus (rather than appeal) of a CBM institution decision for a patent covering a GUI tool. (Full disclosure - while in practice I represented TT and litigated the patent at issue). Of minor interest, the court issued a GVR order (Grant-Vacate-Remand) in Click-to-Call Tech. v. Oracle Corp (15-1014) with instructions to the Federal Circuit to reconsider its prior decision in light of the recently decided Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, 579 U. S. ___ (2016). It will be interesting to see whether the patentee can develop a new hook for the Federal Circuit.
The end-of-term clean sweep leaves only two-more briefed-cases with potential for certiorari: Impression Prod. v. Lexmark Int'l. (post-sale restrictions); and Sandoz v. Amgen (BPCIA patent dance). In both cases the court called for the views of the Solicitor General (CVSG). DOJ briefs should be filed around the end of the year - although the election may shift some of the timing. SG Donald Verrilli has stepped down with former deputy Ian Gershengorn now serving as Acting SG.
The big list:
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