Precedential Federal Circuit Opinions

1. VIDSTREAM LLC v. TWITTER, INC. [OPINION] (2019-1734, 2019-1735, 11/25/2020) (Newman, O'Malley, Taranto)
   Newman, J. Affirming the decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board holding that the challenged claims were unpatentable on the ground of obviousness. The Board held that the Bradford reference was prior art. The Board acted appropriately in permitting both sides to provide evidence concerning the reference date of the Bradford book, including evidence that was first submitted with petitioner’s reply briefs and through a sur-reply that patentee was authorized to file. The submitted evidence well supported the Board’s finding that Bradford was published and publicly accessible before the ’997 patent’s 2012 priority date. With Bradford as the primary reference, patentee did not appeal the Board’s decisions of unpatentability.
2. SIONYX LLC v. HAMAMATSU PHOTONICS K.K. [OPINION] (2019-2359, 2020-1217, 12/7/2020) (Lourie, Reyna, Wallach)
   Lourie, J. Affirming-in-part and reversing-in-part district court’s judgment following a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff. The district court erroneously denied plaintiff’s motion to compel defendant to transfer ownership of certain foreign patents to plaintiff. An order compelling a party to assign ownership of a foreign patent is an exercise of the court’s authority over the party. Given there was no argument that the district court lacked jurisdiction over defendant and the evidence that established plaintiff’s right to sole ownership of the disputed U.S. patents also applied to the disputed foreign patents, the district court erred in failing to grant plaintiff sole ownership of the disputed foreign patents. The district court did not clearly err in granting a permanent injunction on the basis of findings that the accused products are competitive with plaintiff’s products and it was difficult to quantify the harm to plaintiff due to defendant’s premature entry in the relevant markets. With respect to willfulness, there was no need to reach that issue because there was no “tangible, demonstrable consequence” to the finding of willfulness given that the jury awarded $0 in damages for the infringement and the district court denied plaintiff’s motion for enhanced damages. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff’s motion to declare the case exceptional under 35 U.S.C. § 285, because the noninfringement and invalidity defenses were not so weak as to be exceptional and, while defendant’s conduct may have had the effect of extending the litigation and commensurately increasing cost, the district court did not abuse its discretion in not finding that delay alone was defendant’s purpose.