This morning the Federal Circuit released a precedential opinion in a patent case appealed from the Northern District of West Virginia. In the opinion, based on a changed claim construction the court vacated a judgment of noninfringement, but the court also affirmed a determination of nonobviousness. Judge Taranto dissented in part based on disagreement with the Federal Circuit’s claim construction. The court also released a nonprecedential opinion in a patent case appealed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and another nonprecedential opinion in a pro se case. Here are the introductions to the opinions.
Astrazeneca AB v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Precedential)
AstraZeneca AB and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP (collectively, “AstraZeneca”) sued Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Kindeva Drug Delivery L.P. (collectively, “Mylan”) for infringement of all claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,759,328; 8,143,239; and 8,575,137 (collectively, the “asserted patents”). After claim construction, Mylan stipulated to infringement and the district court entered judgment accordingly. The district court thereafter held a bench trial on invalidity and determined that Mylan failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the asserted claims are invalid as obvious. Mylan appeals from the stipulated judgment of infringement and the final judgment of no invalidity. First, Mylan challenges the district court’s claim construction of “0.001%,” the claimed amount of the excipient PVP, on which the stipulated judgment of infringement was based. For the reasons below, we disagree with the district court’s construction and therefore vacate the judgment of infringement and remand. Second, Mylan challenges several factual findings underlying the district court’s determination of nonobviousness. Because we discern no clear error in the district court’s finding that the prior art taught away from the claimed invention, we affirm the determination of nonobviousness.
TARANTO, Circuit Judge, dissenting in part.
I join the Background section of the court’s opinion and part II of the Discussion section, which affirms the district court’s rejection of Mylan’s obviousness challenge. But I do not join part I of the Discussion section, which addresses a dispute over claim construction pertinent to the judgment of infringement. In that section, the court holds that, in claims reciting a concentration of “0.001% w/w” (weight per weight) of a particular suspension agent in the claimed composition, the term “0.001%” should not be construed (as the district court construed it) to have its conventional significant-figure meaning, but, instead, to mean “that precise number, with only minor variations”—which the court then equates to what the term would mean if it were rewritten as “0.0010%” (adding an extra significant figure). I respectfully dissent from that holding.
In my view, “0.001%” should be construed to have its significant-figure meaning, i.e., the interval 0.0005% to 0.0014%, as the district court held, with only one possible interval-shrinking change that cannot matter in this case. The possible change is to exclude those concentration levels which are in the overlap area between the significant-figure interval of “0.001%” and the significant-figure interval of “0.0005%” (i.e., 0.00045% to 0.00054%), another concentration level addressed separately in the patent’s testing description. If that exclusion were adopted, the language as construed would cover the interval 0.00055% to 0.0014%. But we need not resolve whether the exclusion of the overlap of the two significant-figure intervals is actually a proper part of the construction, because a finding of infringement is compelled regardless.
Lenovo Holding Co. v. Dodots Licensing Solutions LLC (Nonprecedential)
Lenovo Holding Company, Inc. (“Lenovo”) petitioned for inter partes review of claims 1–16 of U.S. Patent No. 8,020,083 (the “’083 patent”), claims 1–10 and 12–15 of U.S. Patent No. 9,369,545 (the “’545 patent”), and claims 1, 8–13, and 20–24 of U.S. Patent No. 8,510,407 (the “’407 patent”), owned by DoDots Licensing Solutions LLC (“DoDots”). The United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”), in three separate Final Written Decisions, found that Lenovo had failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged claims were unpatentable. See Lenovo Holding Co. v. DoDots Licensing Sols., LLC, Nos. IPR2019-00988 (Sept. 9, 2020), IPR2019-01279 (Jan. 5, 2021), IPR2019- 01278 (Jan. 19, 2021). Lenovo challenges the Board’s decisions, arguing only that the Board erred in its construction of the claim term “NIM template.” We affirm.
Ensley v. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (Nonprecedential)
Sean M. Ensley appeals from the decision of an arbitrator sustaining his removal from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (“PSNS”). Bremerton Metal Trades Council (Union) (Sean Ensley) v. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (Employer), (May 20, 2021), SAppx 1–32. Because the arbitrator’s decision was supported by substantial evidence, we affirm.