This morning the Federal Circuit released a precedential opinion in a taking case, a nonprecedential opinion in a patent case appealed from the Patent and Trademark Office, and four nonprecedential orders. One of the orders denies a petition for a writ of mandamus, two transfer cases, and one dismisses a case. Here are the introductions to the opinions and links to the orders.
Pressly v. United States (Precedential)
This appeal arises from a rails-to-trails land conversion in Indiana carried out under the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983 (the “Trails Act”). Plaintiffs-Appellees own land adjacent to rail corridors on which the Peru and Indianapolis Railroad Company (“PIRC”) historically operated a railroad. Before the Court of Federal Claims, Plaintiffs asserted that they also own the land underlying the rail corridors. On that basis, they argued that the Surface Transportation Boards’s (“STB”) issuance, to PIRC’s successors-in-interest, of Notices of Interim Trail Use (“NITUs”) – which authorize conversion of the rail corridors for public trail use – constituted a taking of their property without just compensation, in violation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment.
The Court of Federal Claims agreed with Plaintiffs. It determined that PIRC’s interests in the rail corridors were limited to easements, which were extinguished when PIRC ceased operating the railroad, thereby causing fee simple title of the land parcels to revert to Plaintiffs under Indiana law. Hence, the court reasoned, the government’s issuance of NITUs to PIRC’s successors, and the plan to use the corridors for trails without providing just compensation to Plaintiffs, resulted in an unconstitutional taking.
The government now appeals. It argues that the Court of Federal Claims erred by determining that PIRC held easements, rather than fee simple title, in the land underlying the corridors at issue. Because the record demonstrates that PIRC’s interests in the corridors were limited to easements, and Plaintiffs hold fee simple title to the land underlying those corridors, we affirm.
Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC (Nonprededential)
Wildseed Mobile, LLC (“Wildseed”) appeals from a final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (“Board”) holding claims 1-7 and 9-14 of its U.S. Patent No. 7,376,414 (the “’414 patent”) unpatentable as obvious over a combination of three prior art references. Wildseed challenges the Board’s construction of two claim terms and additionally contends that the Board’s analysis violates the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. §§ 551-59. We affirm.