This morning, the Federal Circuit released three nonprecedential opinions and one nonprecedential order. All three opinions come in patent cases: one appealed from the Eastern District of Texas, one from the Northern District of Texas, and one from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Today’s order grants a voluntary dismissal. Here are the introductions to the opinions along with a link to the dismissal.
AlexSam, Inc. v. Simon Property Group, L.P. (Nonprecedential)
AlexSam, Inc. (“AlexSam”) owns U.S. Patent No. 6,000,608 (“’608 patent”) covering systems facilitating use of multifunction cards, including prepaid gift cards. AlexSam sued Simon Property Group, L.P. (“Simon”) for infringement in the Eastern District of Texas. Simon filed a third-party indemnification complaint including a claim for attorneys’ fees against Blackhawk Network, Inc. (“Blackhawk”), which Simon alleged had supplied it with the allegedly infringing gift cards. The district court entered summary judgment of noninfringement, and the court later amended the judgment to dismiss all “counterclaims or other claims” as moot. Simon filed a motion styled in part as one under Rule 60(a) urging that its third-party claim was not moot. The district court denied the motion, and Simon appealed.
We conclude that Simon’s motion should be construed as a Rule 60(b) motion; that relief was available to Simon under Rule 60(b)(1); and that the district court erred in dismissing the third-party claim as moot. We vacate the district court’s order and remand with instructions that the district court enter a new order dismissing Simon’s indemnification claim without prejudice pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c).
O’Reilly Winship LLC v. SnapRays LLC (Nonprecedential)
SnapRays, LLC appeals the grant of O’Reilly Winship LLC’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement and denial of its own partial motion for summary judgment of infringement. For the reasons outlined below, we reverse-in-part, affirm-in-part, vacate-in-part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. v. Inari Agriculture, Inc. (Nonprecedential)
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. (“Pioneer”) appeals a final written decision in a post-grant review proceeding challenging U.S. Patent No. 11,371,055 (“the ’055 patent”). The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) determined claims 1–33 of the ’055 patent are unpatentable for lack of enablement. We affirm.