In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ITC was forced to suspend in-person hearings and halt its fast-paced schedules while it explored existing technological resources and reliable and secure options available for video conferencing that would protect parties' confidential business information (CBI).
Despite the recession — or partly as a result of it — 2020 was also a year of growth for patent litigation in the United States. This article provides a look back at patent litigation filing statistics in recent years across district courts in the United States, with an eye toward current trends that in all likelihood will continue deep into 2021.
Federal Circuit: Texas Court Abused Its Discretion By Delaying On Venue Transfer Motion While Proceeding With the Merits of the Case Federal Circuit: PTAB Violates the APA When It Sua Sponte Adopts a New Claim Construction to Support New Theory of Invalidity for First Time
PTAB to Follow Nautilus Standard of Definiteness
The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a declaratory judgment action based on the "abstention doctrine," despite the declaratory judgment plaintiff's insistence that the underlying contract dispute required resolution of patent validity and claim scope that were within the federal courts' exclusive purview.
It took two years and a last-minute substitution of judges for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to rule that RPX Corp. was too close to a dues-paying member to bring a patent validity challenge.
Federal Circuit: Post-Employment Assignment Clause Void Under California Law Federal Circuit No New Trial for Improper "Pennies on the Dollar" Rhetoric
Patent infringement disputes in the United States are not only heard in district courts. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) also decides high-stakes intellectual property disputes — with the remedy for the IP rights holder not being damages, but rather an exclusion order that can block a competitor's importation of infringing articles into the U.S. That remedy can be incredibly powerful for companies engaged in stiff competition in the U.S. market.
Federal Circuit: HP Not Estopped from Challenging Claims Deemed Unchallengeable in IPR That It Had Joined Federal Circuit: A New Process Does Not Transform an Old Product Into a New One
This article discusses the significant contrast between consideration of issues related to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Int'l in prosecution and their resolution by the PTAB.
