Contentious (Infringement) Contentions: Uniloc v. Apple
In the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, the Court granted Apple’s motion to strike Uniloc’s infringement contentions because plaintiff failed to sufficiently identify the accused instrumentalities. According to Judge Alsup, Uniloc “merely asserts in a footnote for each claim chart that the dozens of accused products ‘operate in substantially the same […]
Fees Awarded in Inventor Holdings v. BBB
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager [email protected] On May 31st in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Judge Sleet granted Bed Bath and Beyond’s Motion for attorneys’ fees and costs under 35 U.S.C. 285. (1:14-cv-00448) The case was filed on April 8th, 2014, roughly two and a half months before the Supreme Court’s […]
Delaware District Court: Electronic Maps are Still Patent Eligible
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager Contact: [email protected] On April 28th in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Judge Andrews denied Google’s 101 motion for summary judgment. The motion asserted that ART+COM Innovationpool’s geographical data display patent (RE44550 Method and device for pictorial representation of space-related data; Claim 1 of the ‘550 patent […]
101 Frustrations
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager Contact: [email protected] On April 25th in Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. v. ASUSTeK Computer, Inc. (3-15-cv-04525) the Court denied the defendant’s 101 motion to dismiss. The motion was heard by Judge Chen in the District Court for the Northern District of California and sought to dismiss the case […]
Device Management, Improving Data Flow and Multi-lingual Search Still Patent Eligible: Three wins for Software Patents
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager On March 22nd Judge Robinson in the District Court for the District of Delaware struck down three 101 based challenges. In the first case, Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Ricoh Americas Corporation et al, the Court denied Ricoh’s motion for judgement on the pleadings by finding that claims which apply […]
John Deere and the Negative Effect of Culling Software Patents
Recently, several news outlets have covered John Deere refusing to share their source code of their software in their new tractors with the farmers who purchase them. Do not blame John Deere for this decision. John Deere’s primary concern is that ‘giving farmers free rein over the software would “make it possible for pirates, third-party […]
ART+COM Motion to Bar Google’s Expert Testimony Granted
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager Contact: [email protected] On May 20th, the Delaware District Court granted-in-part the plaintiff ART+COM’s motion in limine (cv-1:14-217-) to bar testimony by the defendant Google’s expert. The expert testimony was contradictory to the court’s claim construction order. The Court concluded that “[i]t is improper for counsel to argue conflicting claim constructions to […]
Improving Computer Interfaces: Core Wireless v. LG is a Win for Software Patents
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager Contact: [email protected] On March 20th in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Judge Gilstrap denied LG’s Motion for Summary Judgement of Invalidity in Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L v. LG Electronics, Inc. This represents an important win for patents in the software space, particularly patents that improve […]
Alice Approved Software: Federal Circuit Reverses 101 Invalidity of Databasing Patents
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager Contact: [email protected] On May 12th the Federal Circuit in Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corprotation (2:12-cv-07360-MRP-MRW) vacated an order from the Central District of California granting summary judgement of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The decision is a significant push back against the current, anti-software patent Alice regime in that […]
Tumultuous Alice Landscape Justifies Denying Fees under § 285
Jason Bourgeois IP Portfolio Manager Contact: [email protected] Two District Court Judges in the past 7 days have declined to award attorney fees following successful § 101 validity challenges. Both Judges cited the “unsettled and rapidly evolving” post-Alice landscape of patent eligibility under § 101 as reason to deny the § 285 motion for fees. In […]