Posted onFebruary 27, 2016byHenry Sneath|Comments Off on Huge CMU v. Marvell Patent Infringement Case Settled in Pittsburgh
Posted by Henry M. Sneath, Esq. – Chair of the Intellectual Property Group at Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C. (PSMN® and PSMNLaw®) in Pittsburgh, Pa. He may be contacted at hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013. Website www.psmn.com or www.psmn.law
From “ars technica“* publication: One of the largest patent verdict cases ever was obtained by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh Federal District Court in 2012 in the courtroom of the Hon. Nora Barry Fischer as presiding judge. CMU won a $1.17 billion jury verdict in 2012 and the court enhanced the verdict to $1.54 Billion. The Federal Circuit cut the win significantly, by reducing the damages and eliminating the enhanced damages award, but kept the main verdict intact. The case was just settled here in Pittsburgh for $750 Million. It will allegedly be the second largest payment ever in a technology patent case. A thorough article on the matter with good links to the case history appears at web publication ars technica*(http://tinyurl.com/zwb26wg ).
The United States patent laws have a territorial scope and prohibit individuals from making, using, offering for sale, and selling any patented invention within the United States without authority from the patent owner. 28 U.S.C. § 271(a). The United States is just one part of a much bigger world, and the question sometimes arises as to whether an accused infringer’s foreign activities are within the scope of the U.S. patent laws. In Halo Electronics, Inc. v Pulse Electronics, Inc., (No. 2013-1472 and -1656), the Federal Circuit had to address this issue and concluded that they were not.
Background
Halo is a supplier of electronic components and owned three patents related to surface mount electronic packages containing transformers for mounting on a printed circuit board inside an electronic device. Halo filed suit against Pulse for selling products containing electronic packages that used this technology.
Pulse designed and manufactured the accused products overseas and only sold minority of them in the United States. For its foreign orders, Pulse received purchase orders in its foreign offices and then shipped and delivered them to foreign locations.
One of Pulse’s major customers was Cisco, who incorporated some of Pulse’s products into its internet routers, which were sold all over the world. Pulse employees would sometimes meet with Cisco in the United States to negotiate prices, attend sales meetings with customers, meeting with design engineers, and provide post-sale support.
Pulse obtained summary judgment that it did not directly infringe with respect to products that were made, shipped, and delivered outside of the United States. At trial, the jury determined, among other things, that Pulse directly infringed with respect to products sold in the United States and induced infringement with respect to products that were incorporated into other products that were sold in the United States.
Halo appealed the grant of summary judgment to the Federal Circuit.
The Federal Circuit Affirms
In deciding the appeal, the Federal Circuit had to consider the geographic scope of infringement under § 271(a). The Court first looked at the statutory language and history behind § 271(a). It noted that the concept of a sale has physical and conceptual dimensions—where the buyer and seller are located and where a legally-operative act occurred regarding the sale.
It concluded that when no substantial activities occur within the United States there could be no potential liability under § 271(a):
Consistent with all of our precedent, we conclude that, when substantial activities of a sales transaction, including the final formation of a contract for sale encompassing all essential terms as well as the delivery and performance under that sales contract, occur entirely outside the United States, pricing and contracting negotiations in the United States alone do not constitute or transform those extraterritorial activities into a sale within the United States for purposes of § 271(a).
Thus, it affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment of no direct infringement for sales that did not occur within the United States.
It then turned to whether there could be infringement via an offer for sale. It reached the same result, finding that “[a]n offer to sell, in order to be an infringement, must be an offer contemplating sale in the United States.” Because all of these offers involved sales that occurred overseas, there could not be direct infringement.
The Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s summary judgment of no infringement with respect to the foreign sales.
Judge O’Malley’s Concurrence
Judge O’Malley concurred fully with the majority’s decision but wrote about another issue in the case. The district court found that Pulse’s infringement was not willful because it had an objectively reasonable invalidity defense. Therefore, it found that Halo could not satisfy the first prong of the Seagate test—that “a patentee must show by clear and convincing evidence that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent.”
It did not matter that the invalidity defense was first developed during litigation. The objection prong of the test requires consideration of the totality of the evidence, including all defenses developed during the litigation and presented at trial, not just those considered by the accused infringer before being sued. The Federal Circuit affirmed this determination.
Judge O’Malley agreed with the decision but felt that it was time for the Federal Circuit to revisit its willful infringement standards in light of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Management Systems, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1744 (2014), and Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1749 (2014). She also questioned whether willful infringement should be an issue for the court or the jury. She recommended that the entire Court take up this issue en banc in order to clarify the law.
Conclusion
United States patents have geographic limitations. Companies, especially those with presences in multiple countries, need to be aware of this scope in order to make sure that they are complying with U.S. patent laws. It will also be interesting to see if the full Court takes up Judge O’Malley’s urging to reconsider the Court’s willfulness jurisprudence.
While Congress continues to consider various bills that would make it easier for prevailing parties in patent cases to collect their attorneys’ fees from non-prevailing parties, the Federal Circuit is not sitting by quietly. In Kilopass Technology, Inc. v. Sidense Corp. (Case No. 2013-1193), the Court vacated and remanded a District Court’s decision not to award attorneys’ fees to a prevailing defendant. In an opinion written by Judge O’Malley, the Federal Circuit reviewed the Court’s jurisprudence on fee shifting and clarified the elements that must be met for a defendant that prevails.
Background
This case was a more typical competitor-on-competitor patent infringement lawsuit, rather than the “troll” variety that has been in the news of late. Kilopass and Sidense are competitors in the embedded non-volatile memory market. Kilopass became concerned that Sidense may infringe some of Kilopass’s patents after reviewing a Sidense patent application, so Kilopass hired a law firm to conduct an infringement analysis. Based on an initial review, counsel believed that there was a sufficient basis to send a friendly letter to Sidense, asking if it wanted a license and for an explanation of why it did not infringe. Sidense responded by pointing out differences between its design and the claims of the patent and declined a license.
After receiving Sidense’s response, counsel noted that his infringement analysis assumed that Sidense was making a product according to the design in its patent application, which is not always the case. He noted that if Sidense was making the product in a different way, it did not infringe (at least literally). He recommended that Kilopass try to find out how Sidense’s memory cells were made in order to better assess its potential infringement.
A Kilopass employee obtained further information that showed that Sidense was not making its memory cells the same way that it described in its patent application. With this information, counsel determined that Sidense was likely not infringing and that Kilopass would have a tough case.
Kilopass hired another law firm to conduct another analysis. The second firm preliminarily determined that Kilopass appeared to have a valid claim of infringement via equivalence, but that it needed to conduct a more detailed analysis to be sure. Counsel started this analysis, but was instructed by Kilopass to stop all work.
A team of engineers from Kilopass then concluded that Sidense infringed under the doctrine of equivalence after reviewing the patent and Sidense’s products. Kilopass filed suit approximately two years later.
During the litigation, the District Court found out that Kilopass was making inconsistent arguments regarding the proper claim construction before the Court and before the USPTO BPAI during a concurrent inter partes re-examination. The Court then chastised Kilopass for its gamesmanship. The Court ultimately granted summary judgment of non-infringement to Sidense, which the Federal Circuit summarily affirmed.
Sidense sought its fees, which the District Court ultimately denied because Kilopass performed substantial pre-filing investigations and obtained opinions from two different law firms and its own engineers that it had a non-baseless claim of infringement.
Federal Circuit’s Holding
The Federal Circuit ultimately vacated the District Court’s determination that an award of attorneys’ fees was not warranted and remanded for a further determination. In doing so, the Court clarified the current state of the law with respect to whether a court should award attorneys’ fees to a prevailing defendant in a patent infringement lawsuit.
The determination of whether to award fees is a two-step process, which must be shown by clear and convincing evidence. First, the prevailing defendant must show that the patentee’s claims of infringement were objectively baseless. Second, the defendant must show that the patentee brought the claims in subjective bad faith.
In assessing the subjective prong, a defendant does not have to show that the patentee knew its claims were baseless. A showing that it should have known based on the totality of the circumstances, which can include how objectively baseless the claims were, is sufficient. The Court noted that direct proof of subjective bad faith is often very difficult to come by, so indirect proof can be sufficient.
The Court reiterated that a showing of bad faith is required for an award of fees, although, had the panel been working on a clean slate and not bound by prior precedent, it may have found otherwise. Bad faith must be considered by viewing the totality of the circumstances. The Court also noted that in most cases the objective prong will likely be determinative of this issue, and the subjective bad faith requirement “may prove to have little effect.”
Interestingly, the Court considered whether clear and convincing evidence should be required to prove these elements. It ultimately concluded that it must, but did so based on the fact that it had to follow the precedent set by earlier panels.
Finally, the Court rejected Sidense’s proposal that fee shifting should be appropriate whether a patentee files a lawsuit having little likelihood of success. Unlike Sidense’s other arguments, the Federal Circuit did not seem inclined to expand liability in this fashion.
Conclusion
The Federal Circuit set forth a clearer statement of the law regarding awards of attorneys’ fees to prevailing defendants in patent infringement lawsuits. This was not a patent troll case, so the overtones and political issues associated with that topic were not present. The decision seemed to signal that the panel would have considered significant changes to the law but for the prior precedent that bound it. This may signal that this case is ripe for an en banc review. We shall have to wait and see.
The other take away is that the Federal Circuit is not going to tolerate patentees bringing weak cases, especially when counsel expresses in writing that infringement is unlikely. Patentees need to be cautious about bringing such suits, especially where it appears that literal infringement is not present.
Another patent reform bill is quickly working its way through Congress as we speak. The Innovation Act (HR 3309) passed the House by a vote of 325–91 and is pending in the Senate, which has said that it will fast track passage of it. Many of the provisions are similar to those found in the other proposed pieces of legislation that we discussed earlier (see parts 1, 2, and 3), and address some of the concerns I raised in these prior discussions. One of the more significant provisions of the Innovation Act is the fee-shifting provision, which proposes to amend 35 U.S.C. § 285.
Under current law, patent lawsuits follow the American system in which each side pays its own legal fees. The current § 285 modifies the American rule somewhat, providing that in exceptional cases the court may award attorney fees to the prevailing party. The Innovation Act scraps the American rule altogether and flips current § 285 by providing that the court must award reasonable attorney fees and expenses to the prevailing in patent cases, “unless the court finds that the position of the non prevailing party or parties was substantially justified or that special circumstances make an award unjust.” (Proposed § 285(a)).
As an initial matter, this provision is supposed to deter parties from filing frivolous lawsuits, but it is not clear that it will accomplish this purpose. To be a prevailing party requires a judgment by the court, likely either on a motion for summary judgment or a trial verdict. Neither of these happen towards the beginning of litigation, so a defendant will have to still incur significant costs to get to the point at which it has a chance to recover its fees. Many defendants will likely not want to incur those costs, especially if the plaintiff appears to lack significant assets or has a plausible basis for its claims (even with the interest party expansion of proposed § 285(b)).
This provision may, in fact, create an incentive for patent trolls, especially in cases where they have a strong patent but the damages are not significant. By defaulting to a loser pays system, there is a greater likelihood that patent trolls will file additional lawsuits and defendants in these kinds of cases will be required to pay the troll’s litigation costs, even when a troll would have been unlikely to prove willful infringement.
Finally, there are real questions about what it means to be prevailing party and what the “substantially justified” standard means. For instance, what happens if a plaintiff prevails on one claim, but the jury find non-infringement on another? Are both parties prevailing parties? Or, if the plaintiff prevails on one patent, but the defendant invalidates the other asserted patent? What happens if a target of a demand letter files a declaratory judgment action and forces a patentee into a lawsuit that it never intended to file?
Also, when, exactly, does a non-prevailing party have to be substantially justified in its position? At that time it first asserts the position? At the end of the litigation? At any time? These are not trivial concerns. A defendant at the initial stages of a lawsuit often will assert non-infringement and invalidity defenses and counterclaims before having much time to analyze the claims or having the benefit of the court’s claim constructions. Those positions may be only in their initial stages with modest support, but later blossom into very strong positions. Similarly, what appear to be strong positions can turn into weak ones once the court issues its claim construction. In which of these situations are the positions substantially justified?
Courts will undoubtedly struggle with interpreting these standards and deciding who, exactly, “deserves” to pay and who does not. Moreover, while these new rules are clearly targeted towards fighting patent trolls, they apply equally in all patent cases, including the traditional competitor vs. competitor lawsuits. By changing the rules, it will create additional pressures that are more likely to be borne by defendants, who have no control over whether they are sued, than by plaintiffs, who can have significant control over when they sue and which patents/claims they sue on.
The Innovation Act looks likely to pass the Senate and be signed into law by the President. It will be interesting to see if it accomplishes what it purports to set out to do.
Following a December 2012 Patent verdict in favor of CMU against Marvell in the amount of just over $1 Billion, the trial Judge Nora Barry Fischer of the USDC for the Western District of Pa. has denied the post trial motions filed by Marvell. Carnegie Mellon University v. Marvell Technology Group, Ltd., Case No. 09-290 (W.D. Penn. Feb 28, 2013). She has also found that the infringement was willful, but has not determined yet whether to multiply the verdict as an enhanced award. The lengthy opinion is attached for review. More analysis to come and we will follow what is surely to be an appeal to the CAFC by Marvell. Opinion available only on PACER at the moment but we will search for an independent copy to post.
UPDATE: The full decision of the Court is available here.
Posted onJune 18, 2013byPSMN®|Comments Off on Federal Circuit Determines That It Has Jurisdiction to Hear Appeal Before Damages or Willfulness Determination
In an en banc decision in Robert Bosch, LLC v. Pylon Manufacturing Corp., No. 2011-1363, -1364, the Federal Circuit held that it has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(c)(2) to hear an appeal of a jury’s determination of infringement even though the issues of damages and willful infringement have not been decided. Judge Prost was joined by Chief Judge Rader and Judges Newman, Lourie, and Dyk. Judges Moore and Reyna concurred with respect to an appeal where just the damages determination has not been made, but dissented with respect to appeals where the willful infringement determination has not been made. Judges O’Malley and Wallach dissented as to both.
The case had a rather unusual procedural path. In 2008, Robert Bosch sued Pylon Manufacturing for infringing its patents relating to wiper blades. Pylon moved the district court to bifurcate the issue of infringement from the issues of damages and willful infringement. The court granted the motion and stayed discovery with respect to both damages and willful infringement. The court entered partial summary judgment on some issues in favor of both parties, but found jury questions relating to some of the infringement and invalidity claims. The jury found that Pylon infringed the claims of the patents and that the patents were not invalid. The court denied Bosch’s motion for a permanent injunction. Bosch appealed, and the Federal Circuit, in an opinion written by Judge O’Malley and joined by Judge Reyna, reversed and remanded. The parties also appealed the infringement and invalidity decisions. After oral argument, the Federal Circuit, sua sponte, granted a rehearing en banc to determine whether the Court had jurisdiction to hear the appeal in the first place because the damages and willful infringement issues had not been decided.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(c)(2), the Federal Circuit has jurisdiction to hear appeals “from a judgment in a civil action for patent infringement which would otherwise be appealable . . . and is final except for an accounting.” Thus, the question was whether the damages and willful infringement determinations fall within the rubric of an “accounting.”
In analyzing the history of the statute and the understanding of the term “accounting,” the Court determined that an accounting was “a proceeding that includes the determination of both profits and damages.” The Court further noted that historically such accountings were made by special masters, but that this limitation no longer applied, especially after the merger of law and equity occurred in the courts.
With respect to willful infringement, the Court found that historically the issue of enhancement of damages was determined as part of an accounting. Thus, the Court found that it had jurisdiction to hear appeals when the issues of both damages and willful infringement remain outstanding. The Court then returned the case to the panel to decide the appeal on its merits.
The dissent reached a different conclusion, finding that the historical precedent made clear that the term accounting in the statute did not apply to either the damage or willful infringement determinations. Judge O’Malley noted that “[i]n all other circuits and all other types of cases, the finality requirement plainly applies to outstanding damages determinations.” She cautioned that there was no justification for treating patent cases any differently.
On March 1, 2013, United States District Judge Lucy H. Koh of the Northern District of California ordered that the jury award of $1,049,343,540.00 entered last August against Samsung and in favor of Apple in their patent suit be reduced by $450,514,650.00. The court determined that the jury had based part of its award on an impermissible legal theory, and she could not reasonably calculate the amount of excess while effectuating the intent of the jury. For the Galaxy Prevail, which was found to infringe only utility patents, the jury awarded Samsung’s profits. This was a legally impermissible remedy for a utility patent infringement. For several other devices, the court determined that the jury improperly awarded damages for sales made before Samsung had notice of the Apple patents at issue.
Thus, the court ordered a new trial on damages for the following products: Galaxy Prevail, Gem, Indulge, Infuse 4G, Galaxy SII AT&T, Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Tab, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, and Transform. The jury award stood for the remaining 14 products as well as $598,908,892.00 of the original award.
Additionally, the court denied Apple’s attempt to increase the amount of damages. Judge Koh cited the longstanding rule that the Seventh Amendment prohibits a judicial increase in a damages award made by a jury. Apple argued that rule did not apply because there was no dispute about the proper amount of damages, but the court disagreed. However, the court did determine that supplemental damages for infringing sales that were not considered by the jury because the sales occurred after the trial had concluded was appropriate. The court decided to delay the consideration of the amount of these damages, however, until after the completion of appeals in the case.
By Henry M. Sneath, Esq. – Chair of the Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C. Intellectual Property Group. Contact him at hsneath@psmn.com
Last week a Pittsburgh federal court jury found on behalf of local university CMU against hard drive chip maker Marvell (See attached photo) on claims of patent infringement and willfulness. The $1.17 Billion award was huge by any standards and still faces post trial motions which could vacate the verdict or increase it for willfulness, which the jury found. Judge Fischer could grant any number of what will surely be multiple post trial motions including a motion for mistrial, which was made by Marvell counsel during CMU’s closing argument and on which she denied the motion without prejudice to rule on it after the announcement of a verdict. In other words, she could still grant a mistrial and vacate the one month trial and verdict. She could also increase the verdict by as much as threefold based on the willfulness finding. The article attached below indicates that no tech verdict this large has ever stood the test on appeal. Here is one of a number of good descriptions of the case as it has been written about extensively over the last week: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/jury-slams-marvell-with-mammoth-1-17-billion-patent-verdict/
Here also is an interesting video take on the case. http://www.bloomberg.com/video/david-martin-on-carnegie-mellon-marvell-patent-case-er1U0P~yQXC616MuXqU_Hw.html
In In Re MSTG, Inc., Misc. Doc. No. 996, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 7092 (Fed. Cir. April 9, 2012), the Federal Circuit found that license negotiations between a patent holder and its licensees relating to reasonable royalties and damages are not protected by a settlement negotiation privilege.
MSTG sued various cell phone service providers claiming infringement of two patents. MSTG eventually settled with all but one of the defendants (AT&T), wherein most defendants entered into settlement agreements and were granted licenses under the patents-in-suit and other patents owned by MSTG. MSTG also licensed the patents-in-suit to a technology consortium around the same time period.
As part of the litigation, the amount of a reasonable royalty was a primary issue to the extent AT&T was found to infringe the patents-in-suit. AT&T sought discovery into the negotiations of the settlement agreements and argued that such information was relevant in calculating a reasonable royalty. MSTG’s damages expert offered an opinion relating to a reasonable royalty based on comparable licenses, industry survey results, and other published rates for similar technology. The expert reviewed but discounted the pertinent license agreements on the grounds that the royalty rates were “litigation related compromises” and not comparable to a hypothetical negotiation between MSTG and AT&T. AT&T then moved to compel the license agreements reviewed by the expert as well as the underlying negotiations. The magistrate judge determined that the negotiation documents could disclose reasons why the parties reached the royalty agreements, which could provide guidance on whether such licenses could be considered in a calculation of a reasonable royalty between MSTG and AT&T. The district court denied MSTG’s objections and agreed with the magistrate judge.
MSTG petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus, and the district court’s discovery order was temporarily stayed pending review. MSTG asserted that, under Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Federal Circuit should create a new privilege in patent cases that would prevent discovery of litigation settlement negotiations related to reasonable royalties and damages. The Federal Circuit analyzed the relevant rules of procedure, rules of evidence and case law and concluded that settlement negotiations related to reasonable royalties and damage calculations are not protected by a settlement negotiation privilege. Also, MSTG asserted that the district court abused its discretion by ordering the production of negotiation documents underlying the settlement agreements. The Federal Circuit agreed with AT&T that, because the expert offered opinions that went beyond the four corners of the settlement agreements, MSTG could not deny discovery of that same information to AT&T. The Federal Circuit did not address whether such settlement negotiation materials would be admissible in front of a jury.
Contact our Pittsburgh Intellectual Property, Cyber and Data Security, Trade Secret, DTSA and Technology Attorneys at Houston Harbaugh, P.C. through IP and Litigation Sections Chair Henry M. Sneath at 412-288-4013 or sneathhm@hh-law.com. While focusing first on health care and prevention issues for family, friends and employees, we are also beginning to examine the overall Covid Law related issues in business litigation, contract force majeure, trusts and estates litigation and insurance coverage issues that will naturally follow the economic disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some posts herein are from the HH-Law resources of PSMN® and PSMNLaw®. Business Litigation. Pittsburgh Strong® and DTSALaw®, PSMN® and PSMNLaw® are federally registered trademarks of HH-Law. See Firm Website at: https://www.hh-law.com/Professionals/Henry-Sneath.shtml
From “ars technica“* publication: One of the largest patent verdict cases ever was obtained by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh Federal District Court in 2012 in the courtroom of the Hon. Nora Barry Fischer as presiding judge. CMU won a $1.17 billion jury verdict in 2012 and the court enhanced the verdict to $1.54 Billion. The Federal Circuit cut the win significantly, by reducing the damages and eliminating the enhanced damages award, but kept the main verdict intact. The case was just settled here in Pittsburgh for $750 Million. It will allegedly be the second largest payment ever in a technology patent case. A thorough article on the matter with good links to the case history appears at web publication ars technica*(http://tinyurl.com/zwb26wg ).
RSS - Posts
You must be logged in to post a comment.