Tag Archives: CAFC

The Federal Circuit recently clarified in LifeNet Health v. LifeCell Corporation, No. 2015-1549 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 16, 2016) that a negative functional claim limitation can be used to describe a capability or structural element of an apparatus.  The Court affirmed a judgment of direct infringement against a manufacturer where the limitation was found to be satisfied from the moment the apparatus was manufactured,… More

The Federal Circuit panel today rejected TC Heartland’s Petition for Mandamus to direct the United States District Court for the District of Delaware to either dismiss or transfer the patent infringement suit filed against it by Kraft. Heartland had argued that the 2011 amendments to the venue statute have changed the patent venue standard to permitting venue only where a defendant resides or where the defendant allegedly infringes the patent and has a place of business.… More

AIA trial proceedings, such as IPR’s, provide alternatives to traditional patent litigation, as Scott Kamholz and I discussed in our article “Good, Fast, Cheap Certainty: The Case for Patent Office Litigation,” (recently published in The New York Law Journal).  When considering an IPR and/or traditional litigation, factors such as cost, speed and convenience must be considered.  On March 11, 2016, the Federal Circuit took up the venue standard in patent litigation —… More

There’s been an issue bubbling under the surface of PTAB AIA proceedings: redundant grounds.

The issue boiled to prominence last week during oral argument at the Federal Circuit in Shaw Industries Group v. Automated Creel Systems, No. 2015-1116, which was an appeal of IPR2013-00132. Shaw, the Petitioner, had several of its grounds directed to certain claims denied in the interests of “efficiency” and then lost on the instituted grounds for those claims in the final decision.… More