FedCircuitBlog

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights two articles summarizing Oracle’s appeal of the government’s denial of its bid on the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, a plea for “clarity and a new approach” on patent eligibility in 2020, and two blog posts covering a recent defamation lawsuit related to a trademark case on appeal at the Federal Circuit.

This morning the Federal Circuit issued four opinions, two precedential and two nonprecedential. The precedential opinions came in a veterans case and a vaccine case, while the nonprecedential opinions came in an employment case and a patent case. Here are the introductions.

Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. Highlights include two new petitions raising questions related to waiver of the prevailing arguments made in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., non-obviousness, and argument-type prosecution history estoppel, two letters filed by the government in response to arguments related to Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., two amicus briefs in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. itself, and the denial of four petitions. We have the details.

This week (and on Monday and Tuesday next week) the Federal Circuit will hold 17 panel hearings and hear oral arguments in about 53 cases. Amicus briefs were filed in three of these cases. The first is a patent case drawing attention because of a challenge to the district court’s prevailing party determination, a prerequisite for attorney fee awards. The second is a sister case to three cases argued at the Supreme Court last month, Maine, Moda, and Land of Lincoln. And the third case, which presents a challenge to the delegation of power to the President to impose tariffs on steel products, saw two amicus briefs supporting the challenger and two supporting the government.

The Federal Circuit again did not issue any opinions today.

Next week is argument week, and three cases slated to be argued attracted amicus briefs. The first is Dragon Intellectual Property v. Dish Network LLC, a patent case that drew interest from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the issue of the district court’s prevailing party determination, a prerequisite for attorney fee awards. Here is our argument preview.

Here is an update on recent activity at the Supreme Court in cases decided by the Federal Circuit. Highlights include the reply brief on the merits in Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., four new petitions (two in patent cases and two in veterans cases), two responses to petitions (both related to patent eligibility), three reply briefs in support of petitions (in one patent case and two veterans cases), and supplemental briefs and a letter to the court in five cases as a result of the government’s amicus briefs related to patent eligibility in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. and HP Inc. v. Berkheimer. Here are the details.

The Federal Circuit did not issue any opinions today.

Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Given the new year, today’s report covers several lists of 2019’s most important cases in the areas of patents, government contracts, and “access to justice” rulings.

The Federal Circuit did not issue any opinions today given the New Year’s Day federal holiday. Fed Circuit Blog will resume its daily posts starting tomorrow. Happy New Year!