This morning, the Federal Circuit released one precedential opinion, one nonprecedential opinion, and two nonprecedential orders. The precedential opinion concerns the construction of terms of a patent held not to be infringed. The nonprecedential opinion addresses an appeal of a final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which held certain claims unpatentable as obvious. One of the orders is a dismissal, and the other denies a petition and additional motions. Here are the introductions to the opinions, selected text from the denial of the petition, and a link to the dismissal.
K-Fee System GmbH v. Nespresso USA, Inc. (Precedential Opinion)
K-fee System GmbH owns U.S. Patent Nos. 10,858,176, 10,858,177, and 10,870,531, which all descend, via division and continuation, from a single application and share a specification. K-fee filed suit against Nespresso USA in the Central District of California alleging infringement of the three patents. The district court issued a claim-construction order in which it construed, among other terms, “barcode,” a term present in every claim of the asserted patents. K-fee Systems GmbH v. Nespresso USA, Inc., No. 2:21-cv-03402, 2022 WL 2826443, at *5 (C.D. Cal. March 10, 2022) (Claim Construction Order). Nespresso then filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement, arguing that its products did not meet the “barcode” claim limitations under the court’s construction and thus it did not infringe any asserted claims. The district court agreed and granted Nespresso’s motion for summary judgment. K-fee Systems GmbH v. Nespresso USA, Inc., No. 2:21-cv-03402, 2022 WL 2826441, at *1 (C.D. Cal. June 17, 2022) (Summary Judgment Opinion).
After final judgment was entered, K-fee appealed. We agree with K-fee that the district court erred in construing “barcode,” and we reverse the district court’s construction. Because the erroneous construction of “barcode” was also the basis for the district court’s grant of summary judgment of non-infringement, we reverse that grant as well and remand for further proceedings.
Carucel Investments L.P. v. Vidal (Nonprecedential Opinion)
Carucel Investments L.P. (“Carucel”) appeals the final written decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) holding that certain claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,221,904 (“’904 patent”), 7,848,701 (“’701 patent”), 7,979,023 (“’023 patent”), and 8,718,543 (“’543 patent” and, together with the ’904, ’701, and ’023 patents, the “Carucel patents”) are unpatentable as obvious. For the reasons provided below, we affirm.
In re LG Electronics Inc. (Nonprecedential Order)
In this patent infringement case, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas entered an order denying LG Electronics Inc. and LG Electronics USA, Inc. (collectively, “LGE”)’s motion to disqualify Mayer Brown LLP (“Mayer Brown”) from representing Pantech Corporation and Pantech Wireless LLC (collectively, “Pantech”). LGE now petitions this court for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to vacate that order and grant its motion. LGE also moves to stay the district court proceedings pending our disposition of its petition and for oral argument. We now deny LGE’s petition and its motions.