Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. The court received a new petition raising questions related to the terms of a protective order. The court also denied a petition in a case raising questions related to claim construction at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Here are the details.
En Banc Petitions
New Petition
In Modern Font Applications LLC v. Alaska Airlines, Modern Font Applications asked the en banc court to review the following questions:
- “Whether a panel of this Court may hold that this Court lacks jurisdiction over matters within the ‘collateral order doctrine’ in direct conflict with the Richardson-Merrell and DePuy Synthes opinions of the Supreme Court and this Court (cited above).”
- “Whether an in-house counsel may be deemed a competitive decisionmaker where the court determined that parties are not competitors and whether that finding may be used as a basis to deny in-house counsel’s access to confidential documents in direct conflict with U.S. Steel Corp. v. United States, 730 F.2d 1465 (Fed. Cir. 1984).”
- “Whether a district court’s standing ‘standard protective order’ that applies to all cases in the district violates Federal Circuit and Tenth Circuit precedent regarding access to information by in-house counsel through a blanket restriction prohibiting all in-house counsel from receiving various types of information based solely on ‘in-house’ status.”
New Denial
The Federal Circuit denied the petition for rehearing en banc in Sig Sauer Inc. v. NST Global, LLC, which asked the court to review three questions related to claim construction at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.