Time Warner Cable, Inc. v. Sprint Communications Co.

 
DOCKET NO.
OP. BELOW
SUBJECT
Patent

Question(s) Presented

“Many commercial products and services involve numerous components and features that implicate potentially hundreds or thousands of patents. The Patent Act’s damages statute, 35 U.S.C. §284, entitles patent holders to damages only for what they actually invented and claimed: ‘damages adequate to compensate for the infringement,’ which may consist of ‘a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer.’ (emphasis added). To police that boundary, this Court has long held that patent holders who seek damages ‘must in every case give evidence tending to separate or apportion the defendant’s profits and the patentee’s damages between the patented feature and the unpatented feature.’ Garretson v. Clark, 111 U.S. 120, 121 (1884). The written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. §112(a), ensures that patent claims are limited to what was actually invented: every patent must include ‘a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in . . . full, clear, concise, and exact terms,’ or the patent is invalid. The questions presented are: 1. Whether the Federal Circuit erred by affirming a damages award based on unapportioned end-user service revenues. 2. Whether the Federal Circuit erred in ruling that a patent satisfies 35 U.S.C. §112(a)’s requirement of ‘a written description of the invention’ merely because the specification does ‘not expressly exclude[]’ technology within the scope of the patent claims.”

Posts About this Case

Date
Proceedings and Orders
May 31, 2019
Application (18A1232) granted by Justice Thomas extending the time to file until August 15, 2019.
September 9, 2019
Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including September 25, 2019.
October 9, 2019
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/1/2019.
November 4, 2019
Petition DENIED. The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.