Late yesterday, the Federal Circuit released two nonprecedential orders dismissing appeals. This morning, the court released one precedential opinion and three nonprecedential opinions. The precedential opinion and one of the nonprecedential opinions come in patent cases appealed form the District of Delaware. One of the other nonprecedential opinions comes in a government contract case appealed from the Court of Federal Claims, and one comes in another patent case appealed from the Eastern District of North Carolina. Here are the introductions to the opinions as well as links to the dismissals.
TrackTime, LLC v. Amazon.com Services LLC (Precedential)
TrackTime, LLC owns U.S. Patent Nos. 8,856,638 and 8,862,978, which it asserted against Amazon.com Services LLC and several other entities (collectively, Amazon) in an infringement action it filed in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. TrackTime’s patents claim methods and systems for use on a mobile device to navigate within a multimedia file by using a time-correlated transcript. For the ’978 patent, the district court construed two limitations of the asserted claims—reciting, for mobile devices, “executable program code configured to facilitate annotation” and “executable program code configured to synchronously play . . . multimedia”—as meansplus-function claim terms subject to 35 U.S.C. § 112(f), and it then held the asserted claims invalid for indefiniteness because the patent’s written description has inadequate disclosure of structure corresponding to those terms. TrackTime, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 18-cv-1518, 2021 WL 2823163, at *5–8 (D. Del. July 7, 2021) (Claim Construction Order). For the ’638 patent, the only claim now at issue is claim 9, which a jury found to be invalid and also not infringed, and the district court denied post-trial motions to set aside the verdict. TrackTime, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 18-cv-1518, 2024 WL 4300101, at *3–14 (D. Del. Sept. 26, 2024) (JMOL Decision). TrackTime appeals.
Regarding the ’978 patent, TrackTime argues that the disputed “executable program code” limitations should not be treated as § 112(f) means-plus-function terms under the approach set forth in our decision in Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp., 28 F.4th 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2022), which issued after the district court ruled on the matter in this case. We agree to this extent: Further analysis of the issue is warranted in light of our intervening precedent. Because the needed analysis may benefit from new factual as well as legal submissions, we vacate the district court’s indefiniteness ruling and remand for further proceedings to determine whether § 112(f) applies (and, if so, is satisfied).
Regarding the ’638 patent, TrackTime challenges the judgment on the verdict on several grounds. We affirm the judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 102 for anticipation. We need not address TrackTime’s other challenges.
Etison LLC v. HighLevel, Inc. (Nonprecedential)
Etison LLC, d/b/a ClickFunnels (“ClickFunnels”), appeals a judgment of the District Court for the District of Delaware dismissing its patent infringement lawsuit for failure to state a claim. The district court held that all claims of ClickFunnels’ U.S. Patent Nos. 10,846,357 (“’357 patent”) and 11,361,047 (“’047 patent”) were invalid under Section 101 of the Patent Act. We conclude that the district court erred by treating one claim as representative of all challenged claims. Nevertheless, we agree with the district court that all of the claims are invalid, rendering any error harmless. Therefore, we affirm.
Pernix Federal, LLC v. United States (Nonprecedential)
Pernix Federal, LLC appeals from a decision of the United States Court of Federal Claims concerning the United States Department of State’s procurement for the construction of a new consulate facility in Adana, Türkiye. Because the underlying dispute between the parties is moot, we lack jurisdiction over Pernix Federal’s claims.
Berall v. Teleflex Medical Inc. (Nonprecedential)
Dr. Jonathan Berall originally filed a patent infringement suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against LMA North America, Inc. for infringing claims 1–15 of U.S. Patent No. 5,827,178. The lawsuit was transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina after Teleflex Medical Incorporated acquired LMA and Dr. Berall amended his complaint to add Teleflex’s products to his suit. The District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina construed the claim term “mounted on” and then granted Teleflex’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement based on its construction. Dr. Berall appeals the district court’s decision to transfer and summary judgment of noninfringement. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the district court’s decision to transfer the case, adopt its construction of the claim term, and affirm its summary judgment of noninfringement.