Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report covers an article discussing a $175 million settlement between ON Semiconductor and Power Integrations, a comment on an amicus brief in support of the University of Minnesota’s petition for certiorari, and a discussion of a recent supplemental brief filed by Google supporting its own petition for certiorari and responding to the Solicitor General’s brief recommending the Supreme Court deny review in its case.
Dani Kass reported for Law 360 that “ON Semiconductor has agreed to pay Power Integrations $175 million to end long-running litigation after ON’s Fairchild subsidiary was hit with nearly $200 million in patent infringement verdicts, a resolution that means the Federal Circuit won’t answer a burning question about foreign damages as part of the fight.” As reported by Kass, “[t]he Federal Circuit was set to hear highly anticipated oral arguments on an interlocutory appeal in this case on Nov. 5, which involved interpreting the breadth of the Supreme Court’s June decision in WesternGeco v. Ion Geophysical” in which “the justices held that patent owners can recover profits they lost outside the U.S. due to infringement of their U.S. patents.”
Nancy Braman at IPWatchdog noted how “12 state universities and state university systems filed an amicus brief in support of the University of Minnesota” in its case challenging the Federal Circuit’s decision in Regents of the University of Minnesota v. LSI Corporation. As explained by Braman, the Federal Circuit held “that the University of Minnesota . . . is not protected by state sovereign immunity from a number of inter partes review (IPR) petitions filed against [its] patents by LSI Corporation,” and “[t]he amici contend that the CAFC opinion threatens university participation in the U.S. innovation economy, specifically the patent system.”
John K. Waters of ADTMag discussed a recent supplemental brief filed by Google in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., in which “Google says the Supreme Court should ignore the recent recommendation of the Solicitor General of the United States, which advised the court to refuse to review a 2016 [Federal Circuit ruling] that Google infringed on Oracle’s copyrights to Java code in its Android mobile operating system.” According to Waters, Google’s supplemental brief “is a reminder that money isn’t the only thing at stake here, and that the company’s position is shared by some thoughtful people.” Fifteen amicus briefs have been filed in support of Google’s petition for certiorari.