Patent Law Practice Center

RIM Challenge of Two SimpleAir Patents Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of 5/9/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

RIM has requested reexamination of SimpleAir’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,021,433 and 6,735,614 that claim contact alerts for incoming messages (see ex parte Request No. (15) & inter partes Request No. (5)).  SimpleAir has accused Apple, RIM, Facebook and a number of others in the Eastern District of Texas of infringement of the ‘614 and ‘433 patents, as well as two other patents.

The week also saw yet another round in the war between Abbott Diabetes Care and DexCom over analyte sensors (see ex parte Request No. (5)).

And Square, Inc. requested reexamination of three REM Holdings patents for reader cards for cell phones (see inter partes Request Nos. (2), (3) & (4)), which are the subject of an infringement dispute between those companies in the Eastern District of Missouri. (more…)

Apple v. Samsung: “Look and feel” redux? Not quite.

Reexamination Request Against MobileMedia Smart-Phone Patent, Among Those Filed Week Of 4/4/11

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

An ex parte request has been filed – probably by HTC – against one ofMobileMedia Ideas’ 11 smart-phone patents that are the subject of its pending infringement litigation against HTC (see ex parte Request No. (2) for U.S. Patent No. 5,915,239).  MobileMedia obtained the ‘239 patent from Nokia Capital.  Reexamination was ordered last month (90/011,436) for one of the other MobileMedia patents-in-suit, U.S. Patent No. 6,253,075; reexaminations against the other nineMobileMedia patents might be pending as well.  MobileMedia has two parallel smart-phone infringement law suits pending, one against Apple, and one against RIM.

On the heels of its earlier requests against three XRPT patents, eBayrequested reexamination of two additional XPRT patents (see inter partes Request Nos. (2) & (3)).

Finally, Beckman Coulter requested reexamination of a GeneOhm Sciences Canada patent claiming a method for detection of certain methicillin-resistant bacteria (see inter partes Request No. (5)). (more…)

Court Vacates $626 Million Jury Verdict Due To Plaintiff’s Fundamental (And Easily Correctable) Errors

Written by Brandon Baum , of baum legal and Practice Center Contributor.

Question: How do you turn this

 

 

 

 

 

 

Into this?

 

Answer: By failing to establish each and every requirement of the patent law on the record at trial in a manner sufficient to sustain the jury’s verdict.

Mirror Worlds (MW) accused Apple of infringing three patents allegedly used in Apple’s “Cover Flow,” a feature familiar to ipod and Mac OS users. The asserted claims of the three patents-in-suit included a variety of method and system claims, and MW relied on theories of both direct and indirect infringement, and sought to prove infringement both literally and, for some limitations, under the doctrine of equivalents. The jury found infringement and awarded MW a total of $625.5 million in damages. However, the trial judge overturned that verdict and granted judgment instead to Apple. Why? Did MW overlook some subtle nuance of patent law? Was the technology just too complex for the jury to understand? No, the explanation is far far simpler than that. (more…)

Should the PTO’S Reexamination Analysis Impact ITC Cases?

Until now, the  CAFC has not answered the question of the level of consideration a court or the ITC should give to an earlier reexamination and the effect those reexamination findings should have in the present proceeding or investigation.  Scott Daniels, Partner at Westerman Hattori Daniels & Adrian and Practice Center Contributor, passed along this article discussing an investigation pending at the ITC wherein the Commission has raised this question.  Daniels weighs in on whether the CAFC will take this opportunity to answer this looming question.

In January U.S. International Trade Commission Administrative Law Judge Paul Luckern issued his initial determination (ID) finding that Kodak’s U.S. Patent No. 6,292,218 was obvious over the prior art and not infringed by Apple and RIM mobile telephones with digital cameras – these findings were contrary to an ID (by ITC ALJ Carl Charneski) in an earlier investigation that Kodak’s ‘218 patent was valid and infringed by mobile telephones from Samsung and LG.  This past Friday, the Commission announced that it would review Judge Luckern’s determination in favor of Apple and RIM.  As is customary, the Commission’s review focuses on specific aspects of Judge Luckern’s ID, asking the parties to address five specific legal issues – among them, the extent to which the ITC should consider reexamination proceedings (90/010,899) in its analysis of claim construction and validity issues. (more…)