News Archive

The district court granted a motion to dismiss Mankes’ complaint on the grounds that he could not establish direct infringement under the law of “joint infringement” ...

Kraft Foods Group sued TC Heartland in Delaware for infringement of Kraft’s patents.  Heartland is an Indiana company that is headquartered in Indiana.  Heartland is not ...

Mike McKool, a Founder and Chairman of McKool Smith, has been recognized as an “Icon of IP” by Law360.  The publication’s IP Icon series honors the top 25 lawyers in the ...

McKool Smith Chairman and co-founder Mike McKool along with firm principals Douglas Cawley, Sam Baxter, and William LaFuze have been selected for inclusion in World ...

On Tuesday, May 3, 2016, McKool Smith secured a landmark decision for its client Warren Pumps LLC from New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, on an issue of first ...

In this IPR proceeding brought by Harmonic, the PTO instituted the IPR based on some, but not all of the grounds asserted by Harmonic.  As to the grounds that the PTO did not ...

Groupon petitioned the PTO for a Covered Business Method Review (CBM) on Blue Calypso’s patents.  The PTO held that the patents were “covered business method ...

The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment of non-infringement, but reversed summary judgment that the claims were indefinite.   The ...

The patentee petitioned the Federal Circuit to withdraw the district court’s order compelling it to produce communications between it and its patent agent.  In a case of ...

In an interference proceeding, Bamberg copied Dalvey’s claims to invoke the interference.  The claims involved the method of transferring printed images onto dark ...

The claims at issue in this patent application were directed to a method of conducting a wagering game using a standard deck of cards that are shuffled and dealt.  The Federal ...

This is an appeal from inter partes reexamination proceeding involving two patents on methods and systems for performing statistical analyses of investment data.  As to the ...

Halo is a Hong Kong private company that owns certain U.S. design patents and copyrights on its furniture designs.  Comptoir is a Canadian company that manufactures ...

In this inter partes review, the PTAB confirmed the validity of certain claims but held two other claims to be invalid.  The court affirmed the finding that certain claims were ...

Acorda owns patents on its branded drugs.  Mylan seeks to manufacture and sell a generic version of Acorda’s drug.  Mylan filed an ANDA request with the FDA to sell its generic ...

The court affirmed the PTAB’s holding in an ex parte reexamination that six claims added during reexamination were not patentable for being obvious over the prior art.  The ...

The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment of non-infringement.  The patents-in-suit involved vacuum toilets used in commercial aircraft that ...

In an IPR proceeding brought by Shaw, the PTAB instituted the IPR based on certain grounds, but refused to institute the IPR on other grounds, because such grounds were ...

The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment of non-infringement.  The patent-at-issue involved the external appearance of a pickup ...

McKool Smith’s $32 million jury verdict on behalf of the developers of Canyon Ridge Resort has been recognized in The National Law Journal’s listing of the “Top 100 ...

Starting May 2, 2016, patent owners may choose to include “new testimonial evidence” in the preliminary response of an IPR. 81 Fed. Reg. 18,750, 18,766 (April 1, 2016 ...

Effective May 2, 2016, patents expiring within 18 months of the filing of the petition may use a Philips-type claim construction, rather than broadest reasonable ...

New PTAB rule changes go into effect on May 2, 2016. 81 Fed. Reg. 18,750 (April 1, 2016). This marks the second round of changes since the PTO started soliciting feedback on PTAB ...

In an ANDA case, the district court held that four patents directed to the reformulated version of the pain reliever OxyContin were invalid as being anticipated by or obvious ...

Based on the district court’s constructions for three claims terms, the parties stipulated to non-infringement.  On appeal, the district court affirmed the ...

In an IPR proceeding, the PTAB made a final finding that the petitioner Trivascular had failed to meet its burden of proving the claims at issue (directed to inflatable ...

TriReme received an exclusive license from Dr. Lotan to three patents owned by Angioscore for which Dr. Lotan claims to have been a joint inventor.  Angioscore contends that ...

Rosebud sued Adobe for infringing Rosebud’s ’280 patent.  Adobe moved for summary judgment on the grounds that it ceased making and selling the accused product before ...

Rosebud sued Adobe for infringing Rosebud’s ’280 patent.  Adobe moved for summary judgment on the grounds that it ceased making and selling the accused product before ...

This case involved claim construction issues with respect to the grant of summary judgment on non-infringement to Seagate and Compaq on different grounds. 

First, the ...

This case presents three issues: (1) whether there was corroborating evidence of a prior public use by the accused infringer Transweb; (2) whether 3M committed inequitable ...

In this IPR proceeding brought by Synopsys challenging claims of Mentor’s patent, the PTAB held that the IPR itself was not time-barred due to Synopsys acquiring a company ...

Synopsis challenged the PTO’s regulation that allows the PTAB to institute IPRs on all or some of the challenged claims and the PTO’s practice of issuing final decisions ...

In this IPR proceeding brought by Adidas, Nike filed a motion to amend by cancelling claims 1-46 and proposing substitute claims 47-50.  The PTAB granted Nike’s motion to ...

This case involved printer cartridges sold in the U.S. by Lexmark with the explicit restriction that they were for single use only and could only be returned to Lexmark and ...

The court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment that Mr. Lismont’s request to correct the inventorship on Binzel’s patent was precluded under the ...

The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded the decision of the PTAB finding the asserted claims to be obvious due to the PTAB’s erroneous construction for the term ...

The Federal Circuit held that the PTAB had correctly given the claim terms “continuity member” and “shaped to fit” their broadest reasonable interpretation, but ...

Nuance, the patent owner, appeals two issues.  First, Nuance contends that the district court erred in construing the claim term “identifying” to have its plain and ...

In an inter partes reexamination involving a patent on paper shredders, the examiner found the claimed shredder to have been obvious.  The shredder included two sensors, a ...

This appeal involved five patents asserted by Apple and two patents asserted by Samsung.

On Apple’s ’647 patent, which involved a system for recognizing structures in ...

The claims at issue relate to a two-way interactive communication network system for enabling communications between local subscribers and a base station.  The claims ...

The court addressed two issues on Liown’s appeal of the grant of a preliminary injunction to Luminara.  First, Liown contended that Luminara lacked standing to bring the ...

The court addressed two issues on Liown’s appeal of the grant of a preliminary injunction to Luminara.  First, Liown contended that Luminara lacked standing to bring the ...

McKool Smith is pleased to announce that attorneys from the firm's Austin, Dallas, and Houston offices have been selected for inclusion in the Super Lawyers 2016 Texas ...

Managing IP has named McKool Smith the 2016 U.S. “Patent Contentious Firm of the Year (South)” at its eighth annual North America Awards.  The awards ceremony and dinner ...

McKool Smith is one of only 12 law firms in the country to be featured in The National Law Journal’s listing of the top plaintiff practices/firms in the country. In its ...

The court affirmed the PTO’s finding that claims of a pending patent application are unpatentable due to obviousness over the combination of a reference to Gross in view of ...

Covidien petitioned the PTO for an inter partes review of Ethicon’s patent.  The Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) instituted the IPR and then, following the trial ...

The district court did not err in refusing to strike a Section 101 patent eligibility defense or in granting summary judgment under Section 101 holding patent claims on ...