In a case closely watched by intellectual property holders, the D.C. Circuit has provided new guidance on the potential antitrust consequences of the failure to disclose patent rights during a standard setting proceeding.
The Supreme Court's recent unanimous decision in Quanta Computer, Inc., et. al. v. LG Electronics, Inc., expands the scope of the patent exhaustion doctrine and redefines an area of patent law that had been subject to considerable confusion for decades.
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After almost seven years since inception, the lawsuit by adidas against Payless ShoeSource, Inc. ended at the trial level with a jury verdict against Payless in the amount of $305 million. Payless was found guilty of willful federal trademark and trade dress infringement, trademark and trade dress dilution, and state-law unfair and deceptive trade practices as a result of its sale of footwear bearing confusingly similar imitations of adidas's famous Three-Stripe Mark and Superstar Trade Dress.
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The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has determined that a trial court does not lose subject matter jurisdiction over a patent or copyright infringement case where all sales of accused products to U.S. customers were made f.o.b. in Canada by a Canadian corporation.
In Quanta Computer, many observers believed that the Court would address whether, and to what extent, a party can contractually restrict application of the patent exhaustion doctrine, under which patent rights covering a product are extinguished when the product is sold without restriction. Instead, the Court's decision in Quanta appears to be relatively narrow, confirming that the sale of unpatented components can exhaust a system patent that is substantially, but not completely, embodied by those components, but leaving open the broader question of whether parties can contractually limit application of the patent exhaustion doctrine to the detriment of downstream good faith purchasers.
Medical Services Must Be Legally Rendered to Qualify for Payment
More and more frequently, insurers are including 'choice of forum' provisions in their policies in which these insurers identify a particular state or country where coverage litigation 'must' be pursued. While in the past few decades a body of law has developed in federal courts that provides some support for this approach, the standard is not nearly as rigid as insurers would have their insureds and courts overseeing coverage litigation believe.
