This morning, the Federal Circuit issued one precedential opinion in a government contract case. The Federal Circuit also issued four nonprecedential opinions: one in a case appealed from the Merit Systems Protection Board, one in a patent case, one in a tax case, and one in a veterans case. Additionally, the Federal Circuit issued six Rule 36 judgments. Here are the introductions to the opinions and a list of the Rule 36 judgments.
Oracle America, Inc. v. United States (Precedential)
This is a federal contract pre-award protest case. The United States Court of Federal Claims (“the Claims Court”) analyzed a number of legal challenges by Oracle America, Inc., to a large Department of Defense procurement. After a thorough treatment of all the issues presented, the Claims Court rejected Oracle’s protest. Oracle Am., Inc. v. United States, 144 Fed. Cl. 88 (2019). We affirm.
Aviles-Wynkoop v. Department of Defense (Nonprecedential)
Elizabeth Aviles-Wynkoop began working as a program analyst at the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in June 2015. Two months later, DoD placed her on administrative leave. In October 2015, DoD proposed to terminate Ms. Aviles-Wynkoop’s employment, and after receiving her response, DoD terminated her employment in January 2016. Ms. Aviles-Wynkoop appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which affirmed DoD’s termination decision on the merits. We affirm.
Google LLC v. BlackBerry Ltd. (Nonprecedential)
In June 2017, Google LLC (Google) filed two inter partes review (IPR) petitions with the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), requesting review of claims 1, 13, 76–95, 98, 100, 104, 108, 112, 113, 137–139, and 142–144 of U.S. Patent No. 8,489,868 (’868 patent) in its first petition (1619 proceeding) and claims 1, 13, 76–86, 88–95, 98, 100, 104, 112, 113, 137, 139, and 142 of the ’868 patent in its second petition (1620 proceeding). The ’868 patent is directed to controlling a software application’s access to certain application programming interfaces (APIs) by requiring verification of a digital signature. ’868 patent col. 1 ll. 54– 61. On December 22, 2017, the Board instituted review. The Board subsequently issued its Final Decisions on December 19, 2018. Google appeals the Board’s conclusion that claims 77, 79, 80, 82, 86, and 112 in the 1619 proceeding and claims 13, 85, 86, 88, 98, 104, and 112 in the 1620 proceeding were not proven to be unpatentable. BlackBerry Ltd. (BlackBerry), the patent owner, cross appeals the Board’s conclusion that claims 1 and 76 are unpatentable in the 1619 proceeding and 1620 proceeding and that claims 77, 79, and 80 are unpatentable in the 1620 proceeding. We affirm the Board’s decisions and reject both sides’ arguments to the contrary.
Narayan v. United States (Nonprecedential)
Prakash Narayan appeals from an order of the United States Court of Claims (“Claims Court”) returning his December 17, 2019 Motion for Reconsideration unfiled. Appellee’s App. 37. Because the Claims Court did not abuse its discretion, we affirm.
Cones v. Wilkie (Nonprecedential)
Christopher Cones appeals the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (“Veterans Court”) dismissing his appeal as untimely. We affirm.