Claim Construction Timing

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A recent order, issued in the middle of a patent trial in Impinj, Inc. v. NXP USA, Inc., No. 4:19-cv-03161 (N.D. Cal.), serves as a reminder that a Markman hearing is not a litigant’s last opportunity to convince a court to construe patent claim terms.

Claim construction, the review and interpretation of a patent claim’s meaning, usually takes place fairly early in a patent case. Plaintiffs and defendants propose both terms to be construed and meanings that they would have the court ascribe to those terms. There is usually extensive briefing of the issues and a hearing held, a so-called Markman hearing, named after the case in which the Supreme Court held that the meaning of patent terms is for the judge, and not the jury, to decide: “the construction of a patent, including terms of art within its claim, is exclusively within the province of the court.”

The importance of claim construction in a patent case cannot be overstated. Cases are frequently won or lost depending on whether the court agrees with the meaning proposed by the patentee or that of the accused infringer. There may be no more important issues in any given patent case. Defendants typically want terms to be construed narrowly. Patentees, on the other hand, usually counter that a claim term should be construed more broadly—even that it should be afforded its plain or ordinary meaning, without specifying what that plain meaning is. In O2 Micro Int’l Ltd. v. Beyond Innovation Tech. Co., 521 F.3d 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2008), the Federal Circuit made clear that not only is the scope of claims within the province of the court, but the court also has an affirmative duty to resolve disputes over claim scope when they arise.

In Impinj, Inc. v. NXP, the issue of the meaning of the patent term “stage” arose during the trial of a patent directed to radio frequency identification tracking technology. Impinj had not proposed that “stage” be construed during the claim construction process. However, days into trial, Impinj requested that the term be construed because “NXP now argues, for the first time, that if its engineers happened to use the word ‘stage’ to refer to some collection of components in their schematics, and that collection is different from what the claims require a ‘stage’ to be, then NXP has avoided infringement.” Both parties argued that “stage” had its plain and ordinary meaning, but each had a different view of the dictates of plain meaning. Plaintiff Impinj proposed broad, in the court’s word, “flexible” construction: “a section or portion of the circuit.” Unsurprisingly, defendant NPX offered a more narrow construction, proposing that a “stage” is the “smallest unit of circuit components that” performs a particular function. While the court did not agree with the plaintiff’s very broad construction, it “agree[d] that ‘boxes’ on a schematic are not dispositive” and that there was “insufficient evidence to support the inclusion of the word ‘smallest.’”

Four days after “stage” was construed more broadly than the defendant had requested, the jury found the patent in question valid and infringed.

The case illustrates only one facet of the potential flexibility of courts regarding this central issue of the meaning of patent claims. Litigants should not assume that the traditional path is the only one. Do you think the construction of a single term or phrase could either dictate or obviate infringement and facilitate summary judgment? Consider asking the court to decide that single issue at the earliest stage of the case. Does your jurisdiction have patent local rules that limit the number of terms you can offer for construction to a number that is insufficient? Consider asking the court to expand those limits—but be prepared to articulate well the basis for your request and make clear that the parties dispute the meaning. And if it becomes clear—even on the eve of or during trial—that construction of an additional term is warranted, O2 Micro dictates that the court resolve the dispute. “When the parties raise an actual dispute regarding the proper scope of these claims, the court, not the jury, must resolve that dispute. . . . When the parties present a fundamental dispute regarding the scope of a claim term, it is the court’s duty to resolve it.” O2 Micro, 521 F.3d at 1360, 1362.

When it comes to the potentially case-dispositive issue of the meaning of patent terms, it may not be too early, too many, or too late.

About the Author: Lara Garner is a Partner in Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property practice group. Her practice focuses on intellectual property litigation, counseling for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, and a broad range of other matters, including contract, technology, and privacy issues. 

Supreme Court to Review Assignor Estoppel Doctrine

Author: Lara Garner

Assignor estoppel bars the seller of a patent from later attacking the patent’s validity in patent infringement litigation. The doctrine seems commonsensical. One shouldn’t be able to sell a patent and then later turn around and claim that that patent is worthless. It would seem reasonable, then, that the assignor should also be barred from challenging the validity of the assigned patent at the USPTO in an inter partes review. Not so according to the Federal Circuit.

Last April, the Federal Circuit “grapple[d] with the doctrine of assignor estoppel” in Hologic, Inc. v. Minerva Surgical, Inc. and affirmed, seemingly reluctantly, the decision of U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The district court had held that the assignor of a patent was not barred by assignor estoppel from relying on a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision, affirmed by the Federal Circuit, invalidating patent claims in a inter partes review. Also affirmed was the district court’s holding regarding a second patent that the assignor was barred from asserting invalidity of that patent’s claims in the district court.

The Patents and the Parties

Hologic sued Minerva for infringement of certain claims of its U.S. Patent Nos. 6,872,183 and 9,095,348. Hologic had acquired the patents indirectly from the founder of Minerva.

In the late 1990s, Csaba Truckai, a founder of the company NovaCept, with his design team at developed a medical device called the NovaSure system and patented the technology. Both the ’183 and ’348 patents list Mr. Truckai as an inventor and Mr. Truckai assigned his interest in the patents to NovaCept.

In 2004, Cytyc Corporation acquired NovaCept for $325 million and in 2007 Hologic acquired Cytyc. Mr. Truckai left NovaCept and, in 2008, founded a competing company, the accused infringer, Minerva.

In the District Court and the Patent Office

Hologic brought its infringement suit against Minerva in 2015. Minerva asserted invalidity defenses in district court and also filed petitions for IPR in the Patent Office challenging the validity of both patents. Review of the ’348 patent was denied but the Board instituted review of the ’183 patent and eventually held the ’183 patent claims unpatentable as obvious. Hologic appealed.

The district court denied Minerva’s request to dismiss Hologic’s claim for infringement of the ’183 patent as the Board’s finding was “on appeal and does not have preclusive effect as to this action unless and until the appeal is resolved.” But Hologic’s motion for summary judgment was granted, for both patents, that the doctrine of assignor estoppel barred Minerva from challenging their validity in district court. The case then proceeded to trial and the jury found for Hologic.

Subsequent to trial, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s decision that the ’183 patent claims are invalid as obvious. In the interim, the ’3348 patent expired.

In deciding post-trial motions, the district court determined that the Federal Circuit’s decision did not affect the jury verdict because invalidity of the ’183 patent did not affect the finding of infringement as to the ’348 patent, and the jury’s damages determination was adequately supported by the finding of infringement of the ’348 patent. The district court further held that invalidation of the ’183 patent did not affect its findings of assignor estoppel on the ’348 patent.” But the court denied Hologic’s request for supplemental and enhanced damages, and ongoing royalties for infringement of the asserted ’183 patent claims as moot.

At the Federal Circuit

On Appeal Hologic argued that assignor estoppel precluded Minerva from relying on the Federal Circuit’s Hologic decision to escape liability for infringement. It contended that “the final outcome of the IPR is irrelevant to the district court proceeding” and that “[t]o hold otherwise would be to hold that the America Invents Act (‘AIA’) abrogated the assignor estoppel doctrine in a district court infringement action.”

The Federal Circuit examined its precedent and disagreed.

The Federal Circuit had first examined and affirmed the vitality of the doctrine of assignor estoppel in 1988, defining it as “an equitable doctrine that prevents one who has assigned the rights to a patent…from later contending that what was assigned is a nullity.” Diamond Scientific Co. v. Ambico, Inc., 848 F.2d 1220, 1224 (Fed. Cir. 1988). The Federal Circuit noted that, while early Supreme Court cases had carved out exceptions to the general assignor estoppel doctrine, the Court did not abolish the doctrine. And, while some courts had questioned the vitality of the doctrine following a Supreme Court’s decision abolishing licensee estoppel, the Federal Court noted an important distinction between assignors and licensees: Whereas a licensee might be forced to continue to pay for a potentially invalid patent, the assignor has already been fully paid for the patent rights.

Assignor estoppel, serves important purposes including: “(1) to prevent unfairness and injustice; (2) to prevent one [from] benefiting from his own wrong; (3) by analogy to estoppel by deed in real estate; and (4) by analogy to a landlord-tenant relationship.”

The doctrine has since continued to be applied in various circumstance, often with the primary stated purpose of the prevention of unfairness and injustice. That said, the Hologic court reasoned that there are limits to the doctrine, including that it does not preclude an estopped party from arguing that the patentee is itself collaterally estopped from asserting a patent found invalid in a prior proceeding.

Based on those limitations, and expressly notwithstanding the seeming unfairness, the Federal Circuit concluded that assignor estoppel did not preclude Minerva from relying on the IPR affirmance to argue that the ’183 patent claims are void ab initio.

But it wasn’t all good news for Minerva. The Federal Circuit rejected its assertion that its invalidity challenge should not have been precluded in the district court, including declining Minerva’s invitation to abandon the doctrine of assignor estoppel entirely.

The incongruity of the result was not lost on the Court. Judge Scholl, who authored the opinion, wrote separately in the decision to highlight this “odd situation where an assignor can circumvent the doctrine of assignor estoppel by attacking the validity of a patent claim in the Patent Office, but cannot do the same in district court.” Judge Scholl concluded:

I suggest that it is time for this court to consider en banc the doctrine of assignor estoppel as it applies both in district court and in the Patent Office. We should seek to clarify this odd and seemingly illogical regime in which an assignor cannot present any invalidity defenses in district court but can present a limited set of invalidity grounds in an IPR proceeding.

Notwithstanding her suggestion, the Court denied en banc rehearing, the parties petitioned the Supreme Court, and last month the Supreme Court granted Minerva’s petition for certiorari on the question of: “Whether a defendant in a patent infringement action who assigned the patent, or is in privity with an assignor of the patent, may have a defense of invalidity heard on the merits.”

About the author: Lara Garner is a partner in Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. Her practice focuses on Intellectual Property litigation and counseling for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, and in a broad range of matters, including contract, technology, and privacy issues. Ms. Garner’s biography can be found here.

Supreme Court Holds that Offensive Marks Are Registrable

Author: Lara Garner

As predicted in an earlier post here, the Supreme Court has held that the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registration of “immoral[ ] or scandalous” trademarks violates the First Amendment. Iancu v. Brunetti, No. 18–302, 588 U.S. ___ (2019).

Erik Brunetti, a counter culture artist, sought to trademark “FUCT.” Brunetti’s streetwear clothing line used the brand, which stands for “Friends U Can’t Trust” and is pronounced as the four letters “Eff U Cee Tee.” The Court noted one might read it differently, and if you did “you would hardly be alone.” Because of that common perception, when Brunetti discovered knockoffs using the brand, he attempted to register the trademark. His application was denied under a provision of the Lanham Act that prohibits registration of trademarks that consist of or comprise “immoral[ ] or scandalous matter,” 15 U. S. C. §1052(a). Brunetti challenged the denial under the First Amendment. The Federal Circuit invalidated the “immoral or scandalous” bar.

Two years ago, in Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744, 1763 (2017) the Court had declared unconstitutional the Lanham Act’s ban on registering marks that “disparage” any “person[ ], living or dead.” §1052(a). The ban was found to be the essence of viewpoint discrimination: allowing marks that are “positive” about a person and disallowing marks that are “derogatory.” In Brunetti, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority, “[t]oday we consider a First Amendment challenge to a neighboring provision of the act.” In a 6-3 vote, the Justices held that the ban on “immoral[ ] or scandalous” trademarks also violates the Constitution: “We hold that this provision infringes the First Amendment for the same reason: It too disfavors certain ideas.”

The divided Court in Matal had agreed on two propositions: (1) if a trademark registration bar is viewpoint based, it is unconstitutional; and (2) the disparagement bar was viewpoint based. In Iancu, the Court found the “immoral or scandalous” bar similarly flawed because it discriminates on the basis of viewpoint. Supported by a review of the dictionary definitions of “immoral” and “scandalous,” the statute was found facially biased in favor of messages that are in accord with society’s sense of decency. And in practice, the Court noted, the PTO has refused to register marks that are at odds with society’s views regarding topics such as drug use, religion, and terrorism but has approved registration of marks on those same topics that comport with society’s views.

The Government argued that the statute could be preserved by a limiting construction, narrowing the bar to marks that are lewd, sexually explicit, or profane. But the language is not ambiguous and to do so, the Court found, would be to rewrite, rather than interpret, the statute. Fairly interpreted, the viewpoint bias of the bar ends the inquiry and the bar must be invalidated.

Separate opinions dissenting in part with the majority were written by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer and Sotomayor. Each agreed with the majority in striking the “immoral” portion of the law. But all three agreed with each other that “scandalous” can be read to prohibit only marks that are “obscene, vulgar, or profane.” The three, along with Alito in his concurrence, expressed concern for a flood of new, crude trademarks and the creation of public spaces that would be repellant to some. As Justice Sotomayor explained, lamenting the expected result of the Court’s decision, the Government will have no choice but to begin registering the “coming rush” of “marks containing the most vulgar, profane, or obscene words and images imaginable.”

Justice Alito noted in his concurrence that the mark at issue could be denied under a narrower statute banning vulgar terms as the mark expresses no idea (and signifies the “severely limited vocabulary” of its user). But, that “[a]t a time when free speech is under attack, it is especially important for this Court to remain firm on the principle that the First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination.”

Justice Roberts, concurring in part and dissenting in part, observed that the trademark registration system merely confers additional benefits. Denying registration does not restrict or punish speech. And First Amendment protections do not extend to require “the Government to give aid and comfort to those using obscene, vulgar, and profane modes of expression.”

Justice Breyer concurred in part and dissented in part at length, writing that precedents warn against interpretation of statutes that renders them unconstitutional. Agreeing with Justice Sotomayor’s narrow interpretation of “scandalous,” he proceeded to address the question of whether the benefits of trademark registration can be denied on the basis of the narrowly construed statute without offending the First Amendment. He concluded in the affirmative.

According to Justice Breyer, the category-based approach taken by the majority is inadequate. The speech-related categories for First Amendment analysis (such as “viewpoint discrimination”) should be viewed, not as outcome-determinative rules but rather as “rules of thumb.” They are not absolute rules; they sometime give weight to competing interests. And they are sometimes applied, as here, too rigidly. Justice Breyer urged that the Court look to the values the First Amendment seeks to protect and refrain from striking down ordinary regulations that pose little threat to free speech interests. The Court should ask whether the regulation at issue “works speech-related harm that is out of proportion to its justifications.”

The statute in this case, Justice Breyer wrote, does not fit neatly into the categories. It is an open question whether the trademarks statue merely regulates “commercial speech.” And it cannot be straightforwardly described as regulating “government speech.” The concept of “public forum” does not apply, although “limited public forum” may have some application as may cases involving government subsidies of private speech. The bounds between “viewpoint discrimination” and “content discrimination” may be hazy, and the denial of the benefits of federal trademark registration to highly vulgar or obscene words would not offend the Constitution. While emotion-laden, such words do not, standing alone, convey a viewpoint labeling them content-based should not be, according to Justice Breyer, outcome determinative.

A proportionality analysis of the statute, as interpreted by Justice Sotomayor, results in a conclusion that it does not offend the Constitution. A ban merely on registration does not bar businesses from using the words, and trademarks are highly regulated with the specialized aim of assisting customers with identification of goods. Those regulations necessarily limit speech. The Government has an interest in avoiding involvement in, and protecting children from such speech, which scientific evidence suggests may be different in kind – they have a physiological and emotional impact that most words do not. As such, in Justice Sotomayor’s view, risks to the First Amendment are minor in light of these objectives.

Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence in part and dissent in part was joined by Justice Breyer. An alternative to the majority’s interpretation is, according to Justice Sotomayor, “equally possible” and saves the statute rendering it a reasonable, viewpoint neutral-restriction. The Government does not have to confer trademark benefits at all but also cannot do so in a viewpoint-discriminatory way. However, the term “scandalous” should not be collapsed with “immoral” as the majority does because the term is ambiguous and the text of the statute comports with a narrow reading of its meaning.

In Justice Sotomayor’s view, “scandalous” can be read broadly to cover both idea and manners of expressing them, or narrowly to cover only manners of expression. Congress used the “scandalous,” “immoral,” and “disparage” to describe separate prohibited features. While “immoral” and “disparage” target offensive ideas, “scandalous” can be read, not as a synonym of “immoral,” but with a distinct, non-redundant meaning, as offensive due to the mode in which it is expressed. The most obvious such mode of expression is with the use of obscenity, vulgarity, or profanity. Justice Sotomayor does not propose a list (other than “the apparent homonym of Brunetti’s mark,” and “at least one particularly egregious racial epithet”) but would leave it to the USPTO to identify the “small group” of such words.

A limiting construction, according to Justice Sotomayor, is appropriate here and consistent with precedent. It is reasonable in the context of an ancillary benefit as compared to, for example, criminal statutes that threaten freedom. Brunetti would not even be prohibited from using his mark, merely from registering it. “Properly narrowed, ‘scandalous’ is a viewpoint-neutral form of content discrimination that is permissible in the kind of discretionary governmental program or limited forum typified by the trademark-registration system.”

The impact of this decision remains to be seen. But, notwithstanding the worries of some Justices, it seems unlikely that the USPTO will see a flood of attempts to register vulgarities. The value of a trademarks is in the goodwill associated with it. Building a mark’s positive reputation takes a considerable investment of time and care. The novelty of registering a mark that is unlikely, by its nature, to appeal to a wide class of consumers is outweighed by the expense of doing so. Registrations may still be rejected on the basis of other criteria, such as similarity to exiting marks. And it remains to be seen whether Congress will address the issue as it seems likely that a narrower prohibition would be upheld. As Justice Alito wrote in his concurrence, it is up to Congress, if it wants, to devise a “more carefully focused statute that precludes the registration of marks containing vulgar terms that play no real part in the expression of ideas.”

About the author: Lara Garner is a partner in Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. Her practice focuses on Intellectual Property litigation and counseling for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, and in a broad range of matters, including contract, technology, and privacy issues. Ms. Garner’s biography can be found here.