Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a Federal Circuit opinion reversing a $1.2 billion dollar jury verdict;
- the use of court-appointed technical advisors by federal district courts in patent cases;
- how the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s order prohibiting certain expert testimony related to damages in a patent case; and
- a Federal Circuit opinion in a patent case addressing the construction of a claim preamble.
Darcy Jimenez reported for Pharmaceutical Technology on the “latest development in a long-running intellectual property dispute between Gilead’s Kite Pharma and Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMS) Juno Pharmaceuticals” in which the Federal Circuit “overturn[ed] a $1.2bn ruling against Gilead.” Jimenez explained that Gilead “acquired Yescarta along with its purchase of Kite in 2017, and the therapy was approved in the US that year.”
Scott Graham filed an article with Law.com concerning competing perspectives on “court-appointed technical advisors” in federal courts. Graham noted that while some attorneys have found the use of such advisors to be a form of “privatizing the judicial clerk” and gives “some observers a queasy feeling,” other attorneys have found it to be similar to “having a little slice of the Federal Circuit,” highlighting that “the Federal Circuit judges themselves rely on technically trained law clerks.”
Matthew Bultman authored an article for Bloomberg Law discussing how “Micron Technology Inc. convinced the Federal Circuit not to disturb a lower court ruling that undercut a patent owner’s damages case in an infringement suit over flash memory technology.”
Logan Murr for IPWatchdog commented on the Federal Circuit’s “affirmation of the decision of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, holding Google LLC did not infringe patents held by Data Engine Technologies LLC (DET).” Murr explained that the Federal Circuit addressed “(1) whether the preamble is a limitation of the asserted claims needing construction and (2) if so, what would be the proper construction of the term.”