Correspondent
White House correspondent, covers patent, trade and regulatory news
The Sixth Circuit affirmed a five-year suspension of attorney Van Irion for misrepresenting a client's trust status and secretly ghostwriting filings after withdrawal. The court held that the district court acted within its inherent authority to discipline attorneys and found no abuse of discretion in the sanctions imposed.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment of noninfringement for three network security patents, rejecting Centripetal's arguments on claim construction and factual findings. The court held that Cisco's packet-filtering products failed to meet specific statutory limitations regarding two-stage filtering, but-for causation, and automated rule generation.
The Federal Circuit reversed the Court of International Trade, holding that the Department of Commerce properly rejected untimely documents and applied an intermediate input methodology to calculate dumping margins. The court affirmed that Commerce acted within its discretion to prioritize finality over accuracy when respondents failed to disclose key production records during the initial questionnaire phase.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a patent infringement suit, holding that claims monitoring vehicle unauthorized usage are ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The court found the claims merely recite abstract ideas of detecting movement and identifying operators using conventional technology without adding an inventive concept.
The Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's determination that a patent claim was obvious, holding that the Board impermissibly imported limitations from the specification into the claim construction. The court clarified that a 'programming change' requires an alteration in the function of a device, not merely a change in stored data.
The Federal Circuit vacated the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's obviousness determination because the Board failed to properly apply the KSR standard by not explaining how a person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine prior art references. The court declined to review the Board's decision denying the motion to terminate the inter partes review proceedings.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's finding that FedEx's sensor network patent claim 26 was obvious but vacated and remanded the decision for claims 9 and 23-25. The court held that the Board violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to address a specific argument FedEx raised regarding the requirement that a single power management instruction alter both the master node and ID nodes.
The Ninth Circuit reversed a dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction, holding that non-resident defendants who sold NFTs and recorded a California resident's call purposefully directed their activities at the state. The court found the defendants' intentional acts expressly aimed at California caused foreseeable harm, satisfying the jurisdictional requirements without shifting the burden of unreasonableness.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed judgment on the pleadings for five of six claims, ruling that Fareportal's RICO, DTSA, and trade secret actions were time-barred because the company knew of the injury in 2016. The court reversed regarding the civil conspiracy and Unfair Competition Law claims, finding them timely and remanding for further proceedings on those specific causes of action.
The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Eighth Circuit dismissed an appeal because the debtor-appellant died and no personal representative was substituted within a reasonable time. The court held that without a party to prosecute the case, continuing the proceedings is improper under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 8023.1.
