Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- a blog post detailing how in a patent case the Federal Circuit “affirmed a district court’s finding of exceptionality under 35 U.S.C. § 285” based on inequitable conduct;
- another blog post discussing the Federal Circuit’s discussion of the “potential for decision maker bias to occur”;
- a report explaining the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of “a Texas federal court’s decision to clear HP and other companies . . . of infringing several printing patents” and an “attorney fee order”; and
- an article assessing how Apple “won . . . support . . . for its effort to get the Federal Circuit to rehear [a patent] ownership dispute.”
Eileen McDermott reported for IPWatchdog on how the Federal Circuit, in Energy Heating, LLC v. Heat On-The-Fly, LLC, “issued a precedential decision . . . in which it affirmed a district court’s finding of exceptionality under 35 U.S.C. § 285 in favor of Energy Heating et. al., thus upholding an award of attorneys’ fees based on inequitable conduct.” McDermott highlighted the court’s reasoning, noting that “[w]hile the ‘manner’ or ‘broader conduct’ of litigation is relevant under § 285, the absence of litigation misconduct is not separately of mandatory weight.”
Bill Vobach authored a post for 717 Madison Place discussing how, “in Mobility Workx v. Unified Patents, LLC, [he] thought the majority decision and the dissent were interesting for their discussion of previous cases and scholarly work describing where there is a potential for decision maker bias to occur.” Vobach further emphasized how “it is interesting to note the steps that are taken to avoid the appearance of bias even at a level as high as the district court level.”
Tiffany Hu filed a report for Law360 explaining how the Federal Circuit, in Industrial Print Technologies v. Cenveo, Inc., “affirmed a Texas federal court’s decision to clear HP and other companies in multidistrict litigation accusing them of infringing several printing patents . . . .” Additionally, Hu noted that the court “uph[eld] an attorney fee order that the patent owner engaged in misconduct.”
Perry Cooper reported for Bloomberg Law on how “Apple Inc. won the support of a pharmaceutical industry trade group, as well as other groups and research universities, for its effort to get the full Federal Circuit to rehear an ownership dispute over two health sensor patents.” Cooper explained that “the Fed. Cir. said patent rights [were] not assigned.”