This morning, the Federal Circuit released three precedential opinions and five nonprecedential opinions. One of the precedential opinions comes in a patent infringement case appealed from the Western District of Texas, one comes in an appeal from the Court of International Trade, and the other comes in an appeal from a decision of the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals. Two of the nonprecedential opinions come in appeals of decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, one comes in an appeal of a decision of the Merit Protections Board, and the other two come in pro se appeals of decisions of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Here are the introductions to the opinions.
Adnexus Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (Precedential)
Adnexus, Inc. (“Adnexus”) appeals from the dismissal of its patent infringement lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) for failure to state a claim. We vacate and remand for further proceedings.
The Mosaic Company v. United States (Precedential)
This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States Court of International Trade, which affirmed the U.S. Department of Commerce’s imposition of countervailing duties on certain imports of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. We affirm.
Secretary of Defense v. Pratt & Whitney (Precedential)
Pratt & Whitney (“Pratt”) builds aircraft engines, both for commercial airline customers and for the United States. This case involves cost calculations for cost-plus contracts between Pratt and the United States and specifically cost allocation between Pratt’s government and private contracts. The government contends that it overpaid Pratt on the cost-plus contracts because Pratt incorrectly calculated the government’s share of indirect costs (e.g., overhead). The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (the “Board”) ruled for the government in part and for Pratt in part. The government appealed, and Pratt cross-appealed. We hold that we lack jurisdiction over the Board’s decision concerning the base for allocation of overhead costs because the Board’s decision in this regard was not a final decision. However, we hold that the Board’s decision that there was an enforceable agreement between the parties as to the inclusion of so-called “Drag” in the overhead pool was final, and that the agreement is invalid. We therefore dismiss in part, reverse in part, and remand.
Apple, Inc. v. MemoryWeb, LLC (Nonprecedential)
Apple Inc. asked the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to institute reviews—three inter partes reviews (IPRs) and one post-grant review (PGR)—of four patents in a family of patents owned by MemoryWeb, LLC. The four patents—U.S. Patent Nos. 9,552,376, 10,423,658, 10,621,228, and 11,017,020—claim computer-implemented methods for organizing and displaying digital images. In its four petitions, one for each patent, Apple challenged all claims. It challenged claims 6, 7, 38, and 39 of the ’020 patent on written-description grounds (in the PGR), but otherwise it challenged all claims in the four patents as unpatentable for obviousness over the Aperture 3 User Manual (A3UM), a manual for Apple’s Aperture digital image management software, either alone or in combination with other prior art. The obviousness rulings are before us.
The PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), after instituting the requested reviews, agreed with the written-description challenge (not appealed here) and otherwise held as follows. It held unpatentable for obviousness (1) all nineteen claims of the ’228 patent, (2) all fifteen claims of the ’658 patent, and (3) claims 1–5, 8–12, 17– 37, 40–44, and 49–59 of the ’020 patent. The Board, however, rejected Apple’s challenge to all twelve claims of the ’376 patent. It also rejected Apple’s obviousness challenge to eight claims of the ’020 patent (claims 13–16 and 45–48). Apple appeals with respect to the claims upheld in the ’376 IPR and ’020 PGR. MemoryWeb cross-appeals the Board’s ’020 PGR decision respecting all claims held unpatentable for obviousness, the ’228 IPR’s unpatentability holding for claim 15, and the ’658 IPR’s unpatentability holdings for claims 3–4 and 8–12. We reject all the parties’ challenges but one. The exception is for claims 13–16 and 45–48 of the ’020 patent, for which the Board ruled that Apple’s petition insufficiently presented an argument regarding the “second map image” claim element. We hold that the Board abused its discretion in that ruling, because the petition unambiguously duplicated, for those claims, its obviousness theory for a nearly identical “first map image” limitation, and the Board necessarily concluded that the petition’s presentation for the “first map image” limitation was sufficient. Thus, for those eight claims, we vacate the Board’s decision in the ’020 PGR and remand for further proceedings. We affirm the remaining challenged rulings of the Board in all four decisions.
MemoryWeb, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co. (Nonprecedential)
MemoryWeb, LLC, owns U.S. Patent Nos. 10,423,658 and 10,621,228, both relating to methods for organizing and displaying digital imagery. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., successfully petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) to institute two inter partes reviews (IPRs) of those patents and the Board held unpatentable various claims of each. MemoryWeb appeals, but its appeal has become moot because (a) as to many patent claims presented in this appeal, it failed to appeal unfavorable patentability determinations in other IPR decisions that are now final and (b) as to all other patent claims presented in this appeal, we today affirm their unpatentability in a companion appeal. We therefore dismiss in part and vacate in part.
James v. Merit Systems Protection Board (Nonprecedential)
Marcus James challenges pro se a final order of the Merit Systems Protection Board dismissing his appeal for lack of jurisdiction. For the reasons discussed herein, we affirm.
Onyewuchi v. Department of Justice (Nonprecedential)
Morris Onyewuchi, as a preference-eligible veteran, is entitled to certain rights in hiring by the federal government. See 5 U.S.C. §§ 2108, 3304, 3309–20. He had been working for more than a year as an immigration judge within the Department of Justice (agency) when, in 2020, he applied in response to each of two agency advertisements for vacancies, posted less than three months apart, for appellate-immigration-judge positions. He was interviewed for the first position, and that interview counted for the second position as well, but he was not hired for either position. He then unsuccessfully sought relief from the Department of Labor, asserting a violation of rights protected by the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA), Pub. L. No. 105-339, §§ 2–3, 112 Stat. 3182, 3182– 84 (1998) (codified as amended in part at 5 U.S.C. §§ 3304, 3330a).
Mr. Onyewuchi appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board, but the Board’s administrative judge (AJ) denied corrective action. Onyewuchi v. Department of Justice, No. DA-3330-21-0036-I-4, 2023 WL 2357607 (M.S.P.B. Feb. 28, 2023) (Initial Decision); Appx. 5–19. The Board affirmed the denial, with one modification to the Initial Decision. Onyewuchi v. Department of Justice, No. DA-3330-21-0036-I-4, 2024 WL 3688876 (M.S.P.B. Aug. 6, 2024) (Final Decision); Appx. 1–4. Mr. Onyewuchi appeals to us. We affirm the Board’s decision.
Barrera-Garcia v. Merit Systems Protection Board (Nonprecedential)
Former Department of the Army (“DOA”) employee Vicky J. Barrera-Garcia petitions for review of a final decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board (“the Board”) dismissing her appeal as untimely filed without good cause in DA-0752-23-0291-I-2. J.A. at 2. For the following reasons, we affirm.