Late yesterday, the Federal Circuit released a nonprecedential order dismissing an appeal. This morning, the court released two precedential opinions, one nonprecedential order dismissing an appeal, and one Rule 36 judgment. One of the opinions addresses antitrust liability for unlawful tying in a patent infringement case; the other comes in an appeal of a decision of the Court of Federal Claims in a vaccine case. Here are the introductions to the opinions and links to the dismissals and the judgment.
Ingevity Corp. v. BASF Corp. (Precedential)
Ingevity Corporation and Ingevity South Carolina, LLC (together, “Ingevity”) sued BASF Corporation (“BASF”) in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware for infringement of U.S. Patent RE38,844 (“the ’844 patent”). The district court granted summary judgment of invalidity of the asserted claims (1, 4, 11, 18, 19, 24, 43 and 48) of the ’844 patent. See Ingevity Corp. v. BASF Corp., 501 F. Supp. 3d 274 (D. Del. 2020). It later denied both parties’ motions for partial summary judgment on BASF’s antitrust and tortious interference counterclaims and then held a jury trial on those claims. J.A. 39– 43. At trial, the jury found, in relevant part, that Ingevity had engaged in unlawful tying and awarded damages accordingly. J.A. 9087–90, 51–52. The district court subsequently denied Ingevity’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and motion for a new trial. See Ingevity Corp. v. BASF Corp., No. 18-cv-1391-RGA, 2024 WL 579667 (D. Del. Feb. 13, 2024) (“JMOL Decision”). Ingevity timely appealed. For the following reasons, we affirm Ingevity’s antitrust liability and the corresponding damages award and therefore need not reach the remaining issues raised on appeal.
Gamboa-Avila v. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Precedential)
Petitioner-Appellant Jose Gamboa-Avila (“Mr. Gamboa”) filed a petition for compensation under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, 42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-10 to 34 (“Vaccine Program”), in the Court of Federal Claims (“Claims Court”), alleging that a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (“PCV”) caused him to suffer from Guillain-Barré Syndrome (“GBS”).
Because this is an off-Table case, Mr. Gamboa was required to establish causation. A special master of the Claims Court found that Mr. Gamboa did not prove that PCV can cause GBS and was thus not entitled to compensation. On review, the Claims Court affirmed. Mr. Gamboa appeals, arguing that the special master effectively required him to produce medical literature explicitly establishing a link between PCV and GBS, which he argues is contrary to our holding in Althen v. Secretary of Health & Human Services, 418 F.3d 1274 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
Because we conclude that the special master here applied the proper evidentiary standard, we affirm. At the same time, we note that in these PCV cases, different special masters appear to have reached inconsistent results on identical facts. The Office of Special Masters should consider recommending, and the Claims Court should consider adopting, uniform related-case or other procedures to avoid such inconsistencies.