The Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s award of sanctions for bad faith against a plaintiff’s conduct based on the meritless nature of several lawsuits filed in incorrect venues.Continue Reading The Federal Circuit Affirms Deterrence Sanctions
Miller Mendel Inc. filed a lawsuit against the City of Anna, Texas (“the City”), in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging infringement of Claims 1, 5, and 15 of U.S. Patent No. 10,043,188 (the “’188 patent”). The ’188 patent primarily pertains to a software system designed to manage pre-employment background investigation processes. Specifically, Claim 1 exemplifies a computerized method that involves: (1) receiving data related to an applicant; (2) storing new applicant information; (3) transmitting an applicant hyperlink; (4) receiving an electronic response from the applicant; (5) determining a reference class; (6) selecting a reference set; (7) transmitting a reference hyperlink; (8) receiving an electronic response from the reference; (9) storing the electronic response from the reference; and (10) generating a recommended reference list.Continue Reading Another Example of Ineligible Software Patent Claims
This case addresses[1] the application of issue preclusion in scenarios where two closely related cases allege patent infringement against different versions of the same technology. Specifically, this case discusses whether a party’s waiver of a doctrine-of-equivalents theory in an initial lawsuit extends to a subsequent case involving a newer iteration of the technology previously litigated.Continue Reading Precluded, Not Repeated: WARF & Apple Continue to Shape our Understanding of Issue Preclusion in Patent Law
This case addresses pleading standards in view of contradicting factual assertions and a complaint’s disavowal of statements in an exhibit.Continue Reading Healthier Choices Management Corp. v. Philip Morris USA, Inc. No. 22-1268 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 12, 2023)
December 1, 2020 marked the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abrogation of Form 18—the model complaint that provided the minimum requirements for stating a claim of direct infringement. Following the abrogation of Form 18, patent infringement claims must satisfy the plausibility standard articulated in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009). Courts, however, have diverged in applying Iqbal and Twombly to patent cases. As a result, pleading standards now vary from jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction (and even from judge-to-judge within the same jurisdiction).
In a series of blog posts, we are exploring how courts are applying the Iqbal/Twombly pleading standards to patent cases five years after Form 18 was abrogated. In Part 1, we examined Federal Circuit opinions, including the seeming inconsistencies among those opinions. In this installment, we look at how pleading standards have been applied in the District of Delaware.
Continue Reading Patent Infringement Pleading Standards Remain Unsettled Five Years After the Abrogation of Form 18 – Part 2: Pleading Standards in Delaware