{"id":1952,"date":"2018-02-09T20:40:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-10T01:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1952"},"modified":"2018-02-11T21:17:14","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T02:17:14","slug":"walker-process-monopolization-claim-does-not-depend-upon-resolution-of-a-substantial-question-of-federal-patent-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1952","title":{"rendered":"Walker Process Monopolization Claim Does not Depend upon Resolution of a Substantial\u00a0Question of Federal Patent Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafc.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opinions-orders\/16-2746.Order.2-7-2018.1.PDF\">Xitronix Corp. v. Kla-Tehcor Corp.<\/a>, [2016-2746] (February 9, 2018), the Federal Circuit\u00a0transferred an appeal of a <em>Walker Process<\/em> claim to the United States Court of\u00a0Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has appellate jurisdiction\u00a0over cases from the District Court for the Western\u00a0District of Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Xitronix raised\u00a0a <em>Walker Process<\/em> monopolization claim\u00a0under \u00a7 2 of the Sherman Act and \u00a7\u00a7 4 and 6 of the Clayton\u00a0Act based on the alleged fraudulent prosecution of a\u00a0patent.<\/p>\n<p>Xitronix asserted that the Federal Circuit\u00a0had jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C.\u00a0\u00a7 1295(a)(1), and KLA-Tencor\u00a0did not dispute this assertion, but the Federal did.\u00a0\u00a0The Federal Circuit said the question is whether the monopolization\u00a0allegation necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial\u00a0question of federal patent law, in that patent law\u00a0is a necessary element of one of the well-pleaded claims.\u00a0\u00a0Applying the well-pleaded complaint rule, in light of\u00a0the Supreme Court\u2019s guidance and rationale in <em>Gunn<\/em>, the Federal Circuit held that monopolization does not depend upon resolution of a substantial\u00a0question of federal patent law.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Circuit said that there is nothing unique to patent law about allegations\u00a0of false statements.\u00a0 While a\u00a0determination of the alleged misrepresentations to\u00a0the PTO will almost certainly require some application of\u00a0patent law,\u00a0but consistency\u00a0with the federal question jurisdiction statute requires\u00a0more than mere resolution of a patent issue in a \u201ccase\u00a0within a case.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Something more is required\u00a0to raise a substantial issue of patent law sufficient to\u00a0invoke our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 1295(a)(1).<\/p>\n<p>The underlying patent issue in this case, while important\u00a0to the parties and necessary for resolution of the\u00a0claims, does not present a substantial issue of patent law.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit noted that patent\u00a0claims will not be invalidated or revived based on the\u00a0result of this case. Because Federal Circuit law applies to\u00a0substantive questions involving its exclusive jurisdiction,\u00a0the fact that at least some <em>Walker Process<\/em> claims may be\u00a0appealed to the regional circuits will not undermine its\u00a0uniform body of patent law.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit noted that the fact that its law applies to <em>Walker Process<\/em> claims does not mean that it has exclusive jurisdiction over appeals of such claims.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Xitronix Corp. v. Kla-Tehcor Corp., [2016-2746] (February 9, 2018), the Federal Circuit\u00a0transferred an appeal of a Walker Process claim to the United States Court of\u00a0Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has appellate jurisdiction\u00a0over cases from the District Court for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1952\">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":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jurisdiction"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952","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=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1953,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions\/1953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}