Patent Law Practice Center

David Boies Argues for a Second Bite of Apple

Written by Brandon Baum,  of Agility IP Law and Practice Center Contributor.

Readers of this blog will recall that Mirror Worlds won a $625 million jury verdict against Apple, only to have it taken away in post-trial motions.  The trial judge found that Mirror Worlds had neglected to introduce evidence of direct infringement of the asserted claim by any end-user, observing “Mirror Worlds may have painted an appealing picture for the jury, but it failed to lay a solid foundation sufficient to support important elements it was required to establish under the law.”  Therefore, the damage award could not be sustained and Mirror Worlds was left with nothing.

Mirror Worlds retained David Boies of Boies, Schiller, who argued for reversal before the Federal Circuit on March 8, 2012.  Boies was somewhat hamstrung, however, because the record is the record and good oral advocacy cannot overcome an absence of evidence that end-users of Apple products actually used the patented invention. So Boies took a clever tack—combing the record for evidence that Apple itself had infringed, and therefore the trial court was in error, at least to the extent that it concluded that there was no evidence of infringement by any end-user.

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Top 5 PLI Patent Law Posts of the Year

Every Friday, the Patent Law Practice Center likes to provide our readers with highlights from the week’s best patent law blog posts and articles. As 2011 reaches its end, and as the new year causes people to look back on the year that was, we thought it was a great opportunity to present to you the Patent Law Practice Center’s top 5 posts of the year:

1) America Invents Act: How the New Law Impacts Your Clients and Your Patent Practice, Parts 1 & 2: Explanations provided by Robert A. Armitage of Eli Lilly and Company, and Janet Gongola, Patent Reform Coordinator at the USPTO, helped in breaking down the AIA for the masses.

2) A New Doctrine of Equivalents? CAFC Defines “Use” Under §271 – Written by Gene Quinn, of IPWatchdog and Practice Center Contributor, this post discusses Centillion Data Systems, LLC v. Qwest Communications International, Inc., and questions whether it will “breathe new life into the doctrine of equivalents” given the Court’s determination of the meaning of “use” of a system as a matter of law under 35 U.S.C. 271 (a). (more…)

The Truth About Hedy Lamarr

Written by Brandon Baum,  of Baum Legal and Practice Center Contributor.

It seems the entire Internet recently discovered the Hedy Lamarr patent story. Hedy Lamarr was a beautiful actress in the 1930′s-40′s, who was once dubbed “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.” She also is the named co-inventor on a patent for an anti-jamming system for guiding torpedoes.  The system relied on a clever “frequency hopping” scheme, employing a player piano roll to switch frequencies. Frequency hopping is a type of spread spectrum technology that eventually made its way into the modern cell phone. Great story right? Beautiful actress is secretly a brilliant inventor.  (more…)

Federal Circuit Reiterates Importance of Evidence of Direct Infringement

Brandon Baum, partner in Mayer Brown and Practice Center Contributor, passed along this analysis on the Federal Circuit decision Fujitsu Ltd. v. Netgear Inc.

The Federal Circuit has reiterated the importance of patent plaintiffs providing proof of direct infringement by end-users to establish indirect infringement by equipment suppliers.  In Fujitsu Ltd. v. Netgear Inc., the patents-in-suit allegedly covered an aspect of the wireless communication protocols promulgated by the IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance for IEEE 802.11 networking (“802.11 Standard”).  Plaintiffs Fujitsu, LG Electronics and U.S. Philips Corporation each held patents “essential” to the 802.11 Standard, which they licensed through a patent pool.  Philips’ patent purported to cover the 802.11 Standard’s message “fragmentation” protocol. 

Plaintiffs sued Netgear, alleging that its 802.11 Standard-compliant products indirectly infringed the patents-in-suit.  Pertinent to this article, Philips accused 260 Netgear products of implementing the patented fragmentation protocol, and therefore contributing to and inducing direct infringement by end-users of those products.  (more…)

False Marking: An In-House Attorney’s Perspective

I recently had an opportunity to discuss False Marking with Brandon Baum, partner and IP litigator at Mayer Brown LLP, (see “False Marking: A Patent Litigator’s Perspective“)  and Robert Faber, partner and patent prosecutor at Ostrolenk Faber LLP (see “False Marking: A Patent Prosecutor’s Perspective“).   It was interesting to see the varying opinion’s on the issue.  Today, you’ll have a chance to learn what Valerie Calloway‘s, in-house counsel at Polymer Group, Inc. and Patent Center Contributor, insight is on the issue of false marking.

When I caught up with Calloway, I asked her the same questions that I posed to both Baum and Faber.  Here is what she had to say…..

Me: Do you think we’ll see companies begin to stop falsely marketing products in response to the suits?

VC: I believe companies will pay closer attention to this issue.

Me:  Do you believe false marking necessarily causes injury?

VC:  In some cases yes and in some cases no. It depends on the situation. (more…)