Precedential Federal Circuit Opinions
- ANTENNASYS, INC. v. AQYR TECHNOLOGIES, INC. [OPINION] (O’Malley, Bryson, Reyna)
O’Malley, J. Remanding to district court to address threshold issues of whether case should be dismissed for failure to name a patent’s co-owner as a plaintiff. Although not an issue of standing, the plaintiff’s failure to join another potential owner as a co-plaintiff impacted plaintiff’s ability to satisfy the statutory prerequisites for bringing an infringement suit, an issue which needed to be resolved before reaching the issue of claim construction. To the extent the district court concluded that plaintiff’s patent infringement was not statutorily permitted, the district court had no independent jurisdiction over the state law counts in the complaint. - GLAXOSMITHKLINE LLC v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS USA, INC. [OPINION] (Prost, Newman, Moore)
Newman, J. Despite carve out from drug label of indication to which patented method of administering a drug was directed, a jury could reasonable find that a generic drug manufacturer induced infringement based on defendant’s knowledge of its infringing use and promotion of its generic product as the same as the branded product. The fact that doctors already knew of the drug product and its uses was not grounds for finding lack of causation. “When the provider of an identical product knows of and markets the same product for intended direct infringing activity, the criteria of induced infringement are met.” On the issue of damages, the existence of other generic products on the market did not negate a recovery of lost profits because the other generic products were not non-infringing alternatives. Prost, J., dissented on the issue of inducement. - BIOGEN MA INC. v. EMD SERONO, INC. [OPINION] (Newman, Linn, Hughes)
Linn, J. Reversing district court’s grant of JMOL and reinstating jury’s verdict that patent directed to a recombinant interferon-β product used for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis was anticipated. The district court erred by failing to apply a product-by-process analysis to the claimed recombinant IFN-β source limitation and in requiring an identity of three-dimensional structures not specifically recited in the claims.
