To narrow, or not to narrow a claim without lexicography or disavowal in a patent specification: the U.S. Supreme Court is asked to answer the question.
WHDA Blogging Team | December 11, 2018
Cave Consulting Group, LLC v. OptumInsight, Inc., 725 Fed. App’x 988 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (nonprecedential) (Case No. 2017-1060)
March 21, 2018 (Rehearing Denied: August 14, 2018; Petition for A Writ of Certiorari Filed: November 2, 2018)
Before Lourie, Dyk and Taranto, Circuit Judges. Court opinion by Lourie.
Summary
In a nonprecedential opinion, in view of the specification’s consistently limiting description, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s claim construction of “weighted episode of care statistics” recited in a disputed independent claim as including direct standardization where some of dependent claims specifically provide that the calculating of weighted episode of care statistics utilizes direct standardization. Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment of infringement and award of damages because the error in the claim construction is dispositive of the infringement issue based on undisputed facts. A petition for a writ of certiorari has been filed to ask the U.S. Supreme Court if narrowing claims without lexicography or disavowal in a patent specification may be justified.
Foreign manufacturer’s intent to induce infringement in the U.S. inferred from large worldwide market share
WHDA Blogging Team | December 7, 2018
Enplas Display Device Corp. v. Seoul Semiconductor Co.
November 19, 2018
Before Newman, Hughes, and Stoll. Opinion by Stoll.
Summary:
The CAFC affirmed the district court’s judgment of no invalidity and of induced infringement, although it vacated most of the damages award. The induced infringement issue was a “close question” because there was no direct evidence that Enplas actually knew that certain lenses it was selling outside the U.S. would be incorporated into TVs sold in the U.S. But the court held that based mainly on Enplas’ large worldwide market share and in the context of its previous relationship with SSC, there was enough circumstantial evidence to meet the specific intent requirement.
A Tale of Two Printed Publications
WHDA Blogging Team | November 8, 2018
GoPro, Inc. v. Contour IP Holding LLC;
November 1, 2018
Before Reyna, Wallach, and Hughes. Opinion by Lourie.
and
Acceleration Bay LLC v. Activision Blizzard, Inc.
November 6, 2018
Before Prost, Moore, and Reyna. Opinion by Moore.
Summary
It was a flexible standard. It was a narrow standard. It was a sales catalog at a trade show that those of ordinary skill in the relevant art may not have attended. It was a technical report uploaded to a university subject matter-specific library website. The Federal Circuit determined that the sales catalog was a prior art “printed publications” within the scope of 35 U.S.C. 102, but not the technical report.
Spreadsheet Tabs Survive Alice Test of Patent Subject Matter Eligibility
Andrew Melick | November 2, 2018
Data Engine Technologies LLC v. Google LLC
October 9, 2018
Before Reyna, Bryson, Stoll. Opinion by Stoll.
Summary:
This case is about patent claims to spreadsheet functionality. On an appeal from a grant of a motion for judgement on the pleadings for lack of patent-eligible subject matter, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed-in-part finding some of the claims patent eligible. Specifically, the claims reciting a “spreadsheet page identifier being displayed as an image of a notebook tab” were held as not being directed to an abstract idea. However, claims that more generally recite identifying and storing electronic spreadsheet pages and claims that recite methods that allow electronic spreadsheet users to track their changes were held as invalid under § 101 because they fail step one of Alice as being abstract, and they fail step two of Alice because they merely recite the method of implementing the abstract idea itself.
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