In Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Apple, Inc., [2019-1922, 2019-1923, 2019-1925, 2019-1926] (July 9, 2020), the Federal Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded, the district court’s denial of Uniloc’s motion to seal.

Uniloc asked the district court to seal most of the materials in the parties’ underlying briefs, including citations to case law and quotations from published opinions. It also requested that the court seal twenty-three exhibits in their entireties. These exhibits included matters of public record, such as a list of Uniloc’s active patent cases.

The Federal Circuit began by pointing to the strong presumption in favor of access to documents filed with a court. The Federal Circuit sorted the motions to seal into two groups: (1) documents with Uniloc’s own purportedly confidential and/or sensitive information and that of its related entities; and (2) documents with purportedly confidential and/or sensitive information of third parties.

As to Uniloc’s information, the Federal Circuit found that because Uniloc failed to comply with local rules setting out the standards for filing documents under seal, and requesting reconsideration, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Uniloc’s motions to seal its purportedly confidential information and that of its related entities.

As to third party information, the Federal Circuit noted that the third parties third parties were not responsible for Uniloc’s filing of an overbroad sealing request, and required independent analysis. The Federal Circuit concluded that the district court failed to make findings sufficient to allow it to adequately assess whether it properly balanced the public’s right of access against the interests of the third parties in shielding their financial and licensing information from public view, and vacated and remanded for the district court to consider in the first instance.

Litigants with confidential information should realistically evaluate the information, and only attempt protect genuinely confidential information, and comply with all of the court’s. It is a mistake to assume that the court will give free rein to designate information as confidential.

In Fitbit, Inc. v. Valencell, Inc., [2019-1048] (July 8, 2020), the Federal Circuit vacated the PTAB decision that Claims 3-5 of U.S. Patent No. 8,923,941 were not unpatentable on a method of generating data output containing physiological and motion-related information.

The Board held that claim 3 is not unpatentable, based solely on the Board’s rejection of Fitbit’s proposed construction of the term “application-specific interface (API).” The Board did not review patentability of claim 3 on the asserted grounds of obviousness.

The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board’ s construction, rejecting Fitbit’s broader construction. The Federal Circuit observed however that the difference between an application-specific interface and an application programming interface may have no significance.

The Board did not review the patentability of claim 3, as construed, on the asserted grounds of obviousness. The Board held that, by rejecting Fitbit’s position on the meaning of “application-specific interface (API),” the patentability inquiry ended, and by Final Written Decision the Board held claim 3 not unpatentable.

The Federal Circuit held that the Board erred in holding that since it did not adopt Fitbit’s claim construction, that decided the question of patentability. It was improper to hold claim 3 “not unpatentable” by Final Written Decision, without determination of the asserted grounds of obviousness.

As to claims 4 and 5, the Board held claims 4 and 5 not unpatentable in its Final Written Decision, on the ground that the Board could not determine the meaning of the claims because the term “the application” lacked antecedent basis. The Board did not apply the cited prior art references, on which there were evidence and argument, instead stating that the meaning of the claims were “speculative.”

Both parties agreed that the lack of antecedent basis arose from an error in renumbering the claims, which the Board refused to correct. The Federal Circuit said that although the Board states that the intended meaning of the claims is “subject to reasonable debate,” it perceived no debate. Rather, the parties to this proceeding agree as to the error and its correction. The Board erred in declining to accept the parties’ uniform position and correct the error that claim 4 depend from claim 3. With this correction, the rejection of claims 4 and 5 for absence of antecedent basis for “the application” dis-appears.

The Federal Circuit concluded that the Agency’s treatment of this error as the basis of a Final Written Decision of patentability is not a reasonable resolution, and does not comport with the Agency’s assignment to resolve patentability issues.

The Federal Circuit has previously pressed the PTAB to reach a decision even where the claims were difficult to construe. Here the Court went further to require the Board to fix obvious defects in the claims rather than avoid reaching a decision on the merits.

In B/E Aerospace, Inc. v. C&D Zodiac, Inc., [2019-1935, 2019-1936] (June 26, 2020), the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s determination that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,073,641 and 9,440,742 relating to aircraft lavatories, were not valid for obviousness.

The Federal Circuit tipped its hand early in the opinion, declaring “The technology involved in this appeal is simple” — not a good sign in an obviousness case.

The invention related to maximizing the space in an aircraft lavatory while accommodating passenger seats, by providing recesses for the seat back and for the seat base.

The Federal Circuit said there was no dispute that Betts’s contoured wall design meets the “first recess” claim limitation. Nor do the parties dispute that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to modify the Admitted Prior Art with Betts’s contoured wall because skilled artisans were interested in maximizing space in airplane cabins. The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board’s conclusion that the challenged claims would have been obvious because modifying the Admitted Prior Art/Betts combination to include a second recess for the seat base was nothing more than the predictable application of known technology: a person of skill in the art would have applied a variation of the first recess and would have seen the benefit of doing so.

The Federal Circuit also affirmed the Board’s conclusion that the challenged claims would have been obvious because “it would have been a matter of common sense” to incorporate a second recess in the Admitted Prior Art/Betts combination.

While B/E asserted that the Board legally erred by relying on “an unsupported assertion of common sense” to “fill a hole in the evidence formed by a missing limitation in the prior art,” the Federal Circuit disagreed:

In KSR, the Supreme Court opined that common sense serves a critical   role in determining obviousness. 550 U.S. at 421. As the Court explained, common sense teaches that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle.

While there were certainly inventors who were slaves, the patent system was unavailable to them. In an interesting case from 1857, a slave named Ned invented a “double plow and scraper,” which enabled a farmer to plow and scrape both sides of a row of cotton simultaneously. Ned was “owned” by Oscar J.E. Stuart, a lawyer and planter from Mississippi. Stuart tried to patent the invention first in Ned’s name and then in his own, but was denied by the Commissioner of Patents because Ned, as a slave, could not execute the required oath, and neither could Stuart, because he was not the inventor. Stuart, apparently having no sense or irony, complained that it would violate “equal protection” if slave owners could not patent the inventions of their slaves. Read more about this in Frye, Invention of a Slave, 68 Syracuse Law Review 181 (2018)

According to the Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1857, the invention of a slave could not be patented because a slave inventor could not take the patent oath, and in any event could not receive, own, or transfer a property right. This latter point was actually consistent with the laws in some states (e.g., Louisiana) that prohibited slaves from owner property, even if they could obtain it.

The Confederate States patent laws express permitted the owner to apply to patent the invention of slave, although it is not clear whether any slave owner took advantage of this during the short tenure of the Confederate States Patent Office. This provision may have been initiated by Confederate President’s Jefferson Davis, who, with his older brother Joseph Emory Davis, previously unsuccessfully attempted to get a U.S. patent on an improved propeller invented by Benjamin Thornton Montgomery, then a slave owned by Joseph.

155 years ago today, on June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas, and with his General Order 3, completed the elimination of slavery in the United States begun by Republican President Abraham Lincoln’s September 22, 1862, Emancipation Proclamation. The inability to get a patent seems trivial in comparison with the injustice of slavery; but this embarrassment of the patent system ended 155 years today.

In In re Personalweb Technologies LLC, [2019-1918] (June 17, 2020), the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Personalweb’s suits against Amazon’s customers, because they were barred as a result of a prior lawsuit brought by PersonalWeb against Amazon, which was dismissed with prejudice.

The district court held that claim preclusion barred PersonalWeb’s claims regarding acts of infringement occurring prior to the final judgment in the Amazon action, and that the Kessler Doctrine, first adopted by the Supreme Court in Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907), barred PersonalWeb’s claims of infringement after the final judgment in the Amazon action.

The Kessler Doctrine resulted from the Supreme Court’s decision in Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907), to fill the gap left by claim preclusion and issue preclusion. Claim preclusion does not apply to acts of alleged infringement that occur after a final judgment in an earlier suit. Issue preclusion does not apply unless there is (1) a final judgment on the merits, (2) privity of parties, and (3) identity of issues. When neither claim preclusion nor issue preclusion apply, the Kessler doctrine may protect an adjudged non-infringer from repeated harassment for continuing its business.

The Kessler Doctrine had previously only been applied to issues that were actually litigated, but the Federal Circuit expanded the doctrine to include an earlier dismissal with prejudice, which it termed an abandonment of PersonalWeb’s claims without reservation and therefore stands as an adjudication that Amazon was not liable for infringement: “The scope of that right is not limited to cases involving a finding of non-infringement that was necessary to the resolution of an earlier lawsuit, but extends to protect any products as to which the manufacturer established a right not to be sued for infringement.”

In Thryv, Inc., v. Click-To-Call Technologies, LP, [18-916] (April 20, 2020), the Supreme Court vacated the Federal Circuit’s decision vacating the PTAB’s Final Written Decision invalidating claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,818,836 relating to a technology for anonymous telephone calls.

Entities associated with Thryv, Inc. sought inter partes review of the ‘836 patent, and patent owner Click-to-Call argued that the petition was untimely under §315(b). The PTAB disagreed and instituted review, eventually issuing a final written decision reiterating its §315(b) decision and finding 13 of the patent’s claims unpatentable. Click-to-Call appealed the Board’s §315(b) determination. Treating the Board’s application of §315(b) as judicially reviewable, the Federal Circuit concluded that the petition was untimely, vacated the Board’s decision, and remanded with instructions to dismiss.

The Supreme Court held that 35 USC §314(d), which precludes judicial review of the USPTO’s institution decision, applies to §315(b)’s time prescription, and vacated the Federal Circuit’s decision and remanded.

The issue was whether a challenge based on §315(b) ranks as an appeal of the agency’s decision “to institute an inter partes review.” §314(d). The Supreme Court found no need to venture beyond Cuozzo’s holding that §314(d) bars review at least of matters “closely tied to the application and interpretation of statutes related to” the institution decision, because a §315(b) challenge easily meets that measurement. Section 315(b), sets forth a circumstance in which “[a]n interpartes review may not be instituted,” expressly governs institution and nothing more.

The Supreme Court said that this conclusion is strongly reinforced by the statute’s purpose and design. Congress designed inter partes review to weed out bad patent claims efficiently. Allowing §315(b) appeals, however, would unwind agency proceedings determining patentability and leave bad patents enforceable.

The Supreme Court rejected Click-to-Call’s argument that §314(d)’s bar on judicial review was limited to the USPTO’s threshold determination under §314(a) of whether the petitioner has a reasonable likelihood of prevailing. Finding Cuozzo is “fatal” to that interpretation.

Justice Gorsuch and Sotomayor dissented, with a persuasive explanation of not just how the majority got it wrong, but also why they are wrong, noting: “No matter how wrong or even purposefully evasive, the Director’s assessment of a petition’s timeliness is always immune from review.” According to Gorsuch and Sotomayor it was only the initial determination of a reasonable likelihood of success that was insulated from review, since this would necessarily be reviewed as part of the review of the Final Written Decision.

There just seems to be something wrong in allowing an administrative agency to determine an issue of law outside of its expertise (the significance of service of a complaint), and then barring the courts from reviewing it. It is bad policy to insulate the patent office from review, and bad precedent to insulate any administrative agency from review.

Here are a few older patents on Easter-related inventions to mark the Easter 2020.

In Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. v. Mylan Phamaceuticals Inc., [2018-2097] (April 8, 2020) the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded that district court’s grant of summary judgment that claim 8 of U.S. 8,552,025 is not invalid.

The ‘025 claims stable methylnaltrexone pharmaceutical preparations. Claim 8 recites “[t]he pharmaceutical preparation of claim 1, wherein the preparation is stable to storage for 24 months at about room temperature.”

Mylan argued that the district court erred in at least two respects: (1) by failing to hold that Mylan established a prima facie case that claim 8 would have been obvious because the pH range in the claim overlaps with pH ranges in the prior art for similar compounds and (2) by resolving disputed fact issues at summary judgment.

The Federal Circuit agreed with Mylan that the record supports a prima facie case of obviousness. Here, the pH range recited in claim 8 clearly overlaps with the pH range in the record art, but none of the references disclose the same drug as the one claimed. The qestion was whether prior art ranges for solutions of structurally and functionally similar compounds that overlap with a claimed range can establish a prima facie case of obviousness. The Federal Circuit conclude that they can and, in this case, do. The Federal Circuit noted that its case law reflects an understanding that skilled artisans can expect structurally similar compounds to have similar properties, and that that an obviousness analysis can rely on prior art compounds with similar pharmacological utility in addition to structural similarity.

Because these three molecules bear significant struc-tural and functionality similarity, and because the prior art of record teaches pH ranges that overlap with the pH range recited in claim 8, Mylan has at least raised a prima facie case of obviousness sufficient to survive summary judgment.