{"id":1550,"date":"2017-05-16T11:30:27","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T15:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2017-05-21T11:57:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T15:57:24","slug":"failure-to-provide-an-unconditional-covenant-not-to-sue-kept-case-and-controversy-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1550","title":{"rendered":"Failure to Provide an Unconditional Covenant Not to Sue Kept Case and Controversy Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafc.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opinions-orders\/16-1357.Opinion.5-11-2017.1.PDF\">ArcelorMittal v. AK Steel Corp.<\/a>, [2016-1357] (May 16, 2017), the Federal Circuit affirmed the summary judgment invalidating claims 24 and 25\u00a0of U.S. Patent No. RE44153.<\/p>\n<p>On appeal, ArcelorMittal argued it never asserted claim 24 and 25, noting that ArcelorMittal never contested defendant&#8217;s statements that the validity of claims 24 and 25 was at issue. \u00a0The Federal Circuit found this tacit acceptance of Defendants\u2019 representations\u00a0about the litigation status of claims 24 and 25\u00a0reflected ArcelorMittal\u2019s continued attempt to assert those\u00a0claims.<\/p>\n<p>ArcelorMittal also argued that the dispute became moot when ArcelorMittal conditionally\u00a0tendered its covenant not to sue to Defendants. \u00a0The Federal Circuit said that although a\u00a0patentee\u2019s grant of a covenant not to sue a potential\u00a0infringer can sometimes deprive a court of subject matter\u00a0jurisdiction,the patentee \u201cbears\u00a0the formidable burden of showing\u201d \u201cthat it \u2018could not\u00a0reasonably be expected\u2019 to resume its enforcement efforts\u00a0against\u201d the covenanted, accused infringer. \u00a0The Federal Circuit said that this\u00a0that requires ArcelorMittal to show that it<br \/>\nactually granted a covenant not to sue to Defendants, and\u00a0that the covenant enforceably extinguished any real\u00a0controversy between the parties related to infringement of\u00a0the RE\u2019153 patent. \u00a0The Federal Circuit found that at no time before the court entered\u00a0summary judgment did ArcelorMittal unconditionally\u00a0assure Defendants and their customers that it would\u00a0never assert RE\u2019153 claims 24 and 25 against them. \u00a0The Federal Circuit noted that this result was\u00a0entirely\u00a0within ArcelorMittal\u2019s control &#8212; it could have, but never did delivered an unconditional, executed covenant not to sue.<\/p>\n<p>Turning to the merits of the case, the Federal Circuit found that the district court correctly implemented its\u00a0mandate by limiting the\u00a0analysis to noninfringement\u00a0and commercial success of RE\u2019153 claims 24\u00a0and 25.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In ArcelorMittal v. AK Steel Corp., [2016-1357] (May 16, 2017), the Federal Circuit affirmed the summary judgment invalidating claims 24 and 25\u00a0of U.S. Patent No. RE44153. On appeal, ArcelorMittal argued it never asserted claim 24 and 25, noting that ArcelorMittal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1550\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-declaratory-judgment","category-jurisdiction"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1551,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}