When Communications Confer Personal Jurisdiction: A Cautionary Tale for Clients and Attorneys

Author: Garrett Fahy

Introduction

It is a question many intellectual property lawyers navigating a potential infringement case have undoubtedly pondered: how many communications with opposing counsel over a budding infringement dispute are enough to subject the attorney’s client to personal jurisdiction in the infringer’s home (and possibly foreign) forum? (And if they have not pondered it, they now have good reason to.)

In Trimble, Inc., Innovative Software Engineering, LLC v. Perdiemco LLC (2019-2164) (May 12, 2021), the Federal Circuit defined the number and type of communications and contacts that will subject a client to personal jurisdiction in a foreign and potentially inconvenient forum in a declaratory judgment patent infringement case: twenty-two communications in a three month period, even in service of potential settlement discussions, is enough to subject an attorney’s client to jurisdiction in a foreign forum if the court finds the communications constitute sufficient purposeful availment.

Background

Defendant PerDiemCo, LLC (“PerDiemCo”), a Texas LLC, is the owner of eleven patents (via assignment) having a common specification and relating to electronic logging devices and geofencing. Electronic logging devices log the hours and activities of truck and other commercial vehicle drivers to help their employers comply with federal and state safety regulations. PerDiemCo accused Trimble, Inc. (“Trimble”) and Innovative Software Engineering, LLC (“ISE”) of infringement in letters and other communications in the fall of 2018. Robert Babayi, a resident of Washington, D.C., is the sole owner, officer and employee of PerDiemCo, which rented office space in Marshall, Texas. Mr. Babayi had never visited the rental office in Marshall and had no employees in Marshall.

The declaratory judgment Plaintiffs, Trimble and its wholly owned subsidiary ISE, manufacture and sell positioning and navigation products and services that rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS). Trimble and ISE offer electronic logging devices and related services, and Trimble sells geofencing products. Trimble is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California (in the Northern District of CA). Trimble’s subsidiary, ISE, is an Iowa LLC with its headquarters and principal place of business in Coralville, Iowa.

Mr. Babayi of PerDiemCo launched the first communicative salvo in October of 2018, sending a letter to ISE in Iowa accusing ISE’s products and services of using technology covered by at least PerDiemCo’s electronic-logging-device patents. Mr. Babayi also attached to his letter a draft and unfiled complaint for the Northern District of Iowa which included a claim chart, proposed a license to PerDiemCo’s patents, and attached a draft non-disclosure agreement. In response to a letter from Trimble’s chief IP counsel, Mr. Babayi responded by alleging Trimble also infringed PerDiemCo’s patents and included a claim chart. Further calls followed and PerDiemCo then offered to enter into binding mediation.

In subsequent communications, PerDiemCo made additional allegations of infringement against Trimble concerning electronic logging devices, bringing the total number of asserted patents to eleven, and later alleged Trimble’s geofencing products infringed claims of six of the eleven already asserted patents that related to geofencing. In the course of these communications, PerDiemCo threatened to sue Trimble for patent infringement in the Eastern District of Texas and identified counsel it had retained for that purpose.

Plaintiffs’ Complaint for Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement

In January of 2019, Trimble and ISE filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of non-infringement in the Northern District of California, and alleged that PerDiemCo was subject to jurisdiction under a specific jurisdiction theory. PerDiemCo moved to dismiss, arguing the court lacked personal jurisdiction under Red Wing Shoe Co. v. Hockerson-Halberstadt, Inc., 148 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 1998). The district court held it lacked specific personal jurisdiction over PerDiemCo because even though Trimble had established PerDiemCo’s minimum contacts through its cease-and-desist letters and other communications that were purposefully directed at Trimble, a California resident, and Trimble’s declaratory judgment claim arose out of PerDiemCo’s activities, the court, applying Red Wing, held that exercising specific personal jurisdiction over PerDiemCo would be constitutionally unreasonable.

The Federal Circuit’s Opinion

The question for the Federal Circuit was whether Red Wing precluded the federal district court for the Northern District of California from asserting personal jurisdiction over PerDiemCo, based on its communications to Trimble. The court determined Red Wing does not preclude personal jurisdiction, and the district court had personal jurisdiction over PerDiemCo, a Texas LLC. Why?

First, the exercise of jurisdiction focuses on the “nature and extent of ‘the defendant’s relationship to the forum state,’” Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 141 S. Ct. 1017, 1024 (2021) (“Ford”) (quoting Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Ct. of Cal., 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1779 (2017)), and the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction requires that the “plaintiff’s claims… ‘must arise out of or relate to the defendant’s contacts’ with the forum.” Id. The defendant must take some act by which it purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum state, and the contacts must show that the defendant deliberately reached out beyond its home. Id.

In Red Wing Shoe Co. v. Hockerson-Halberstadt, Inc., 148 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 1998), Hockerson-Halberstadt, Inc. (“HHI”) a Louisiana corporation with its principal place of business in New Mexico sent three demand letters in a three-month period to Red Wing Shoe Co., a Minnesota corporation with a principal place of business in Minnesota. Id. at 1357. HHI and Red Wing exchanged letters, in the course of which HHI made further allegations of infringement against Red Wing and offered Red Wing a nonexclusive license. Id. The court held HHI’s efforts were insufficient to constitute purposeful availment of the forum state on the grounds that a patentee should not subject itself to personal jurisdiction in a forum solely by informing a party who happens to be located there of suspected infringement, and basing personal jurisdiction on such contacts alone would not comport with principles of fairness. Id. at 1361. The court also said the cease-and-desist letter that included an offer of a license was more like an offer for settlement rather than an arms-length negotiation in anticipation of a long-term continuing business relationship. Id. And principles of fair play and substantial justice afforded a patentee sufficient latitude to inform others of its patent rights without subjecting itself to jurisdiction in a foreign forum. Id. at 1360-1361.

Post-Red Wing legal developments also set PerDiemCo’s actions apart from the plaintiff in Red Wing and rendered appropriate the district court’s exercise of jurisdiction over PerDiemCo.

First, the Supreme Court clarified in cases after Red Wing that the personal jurisdiction analysis in a patent case is not different on account of special patent policies. SCA Hygiene Prods. Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Prods., LLC, 137 S. Ct. 954, 964 (2017). In other words, there is no patent-specific statute for personal jurisdiction purposes. TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Grp., 137 S. Ct. 1514, 1518 (2017).

Second, the Supreme Court has held that communications sent into a state may create specific personal jurisdiction, depending on the nature and scope of such communications. South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., 138 S. Ct 2080 (2018). As the Court said in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, 308 (1992), an entity that repeatedly sends communications into a forum state “clearly has ‘fair warning that its activities may subject it to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign.’” And the Federal Circuit has tracked this reasoning, finding that in the context of patent litigation, communications threatening suit or proposing settlement or patent licenses can be sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction. Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. v. Plano Encryption Technologies, LLC, 910 F.3d 1199 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (exercise of personal jurisdiction over a defendant was reasonable after the defendant sent communications to eleven banks located in the forum, identifying the patents, alleging the Banks were infringing the patents and inviting non-exclusive licenses.).

Third, the Court’s decision in Ford means that “a broad set” of a defendant’s contacts with a forum are relevant to the minimum contacts analysis. There, in deciding the question whether Montana’s and Minnesota’s courts could exercise personal jurisdiction over Ford for accidents involving Ford cars that took place in the states despite the vehicles not being sold in either state, the Court focused not on the contacts related to the specific vehicles, but Ford’s broader efforts to sell similar vehicles in each state. Ford’s “veritable truckload of contracts” with the states were relevant to analyzing the connection between Ford’s forum contacts and the plaintiff’s suit. Id. at 1031-32.

In short, while the “limited number of communications” in Red Wing—three—was not sufficient to constitute purposeful availment of the forum state, the Federal Circuit here found that twenty-two communications was more than sufficient in light of the nature of the communications, the expanding scope of the communications from ISE initially to later include Trimble and its alleged infringement, PerDiemCo’s retention and identification of counsel in Texas and its history of filing lawsuits all over the country, which was its core business effort. PerDiemCo “repeatedly contacted Trimble and ISE in California, accumulating an extensive number of contacts with the forum in a short period of time.”

The Federal Circuit found that PerDiemCo went far beyond informing plaintiffs of its patent rights without subjecting itself to jurisdiction, and its attempts to extract a license were more akin to an arms-length negotiation in anticipation of a longer term continuing business relationship, over which a district court may exercise jurisdiction. And, an obvious fact, Trimble was headquartered in California. Plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment action related to PerDiemCo’s contacts with California, and the minimum contacts or purposeful availment requirement was easily met here.

Finally, as to the five factors from Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462 (1985) and World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286 (1980) bearing on whether the exercise of personal jurisdiction would comport with fair play and substantial justice, the court found they all weighed in favor of exercising jurisdiction. First, as to the burden on the defendant, the court found given that PerDiemCo’s history of suing in Texas, threatening to sue in Iowa, its burden of litigating in California was only slightly greater than litigating in Texas or Iowa. Second, as to the forum state’s interest in adjudicating the dispute, the court found California and the Northern District had a significant interest as Trimble resides there. Third, as to plaintiffs’ interest in obtaining convenient and effective relief, Trimble had an interest in protecting itself from patent infringement by obtaining relief from a nearby federal court in its home forum, and Trimble’s employees and documents were located there. Fourth, as to the interstate judicial system’s interest in obtaining the most efficient resolution of controversies, that interest did not counsel against jurisdiction in California. Fifth and finally, as to the shared interest of the several states in furthering fundamental substantive social policies, the court found no conflict between the interests of California and any other state because the same body of patent law would apply regardless of the forum.

What It Means/Practice Pointers

In light of this recent decision, what is the message for IP attorneys practicing in this area? First, be mindful of the residency or principal place of business of the company you are accusing of infringement. A good question to ask before sending the third, fourth or fifth letter may be: does my client want to defend a lawsuit in ________ (home of alleged infringer)? Its home forum may soon be the forum for your client’s dispute, no matter how far it is from your client, or you. One practice pointer may be: do your research first and include every possible infringement allegation against the other company (or its parent or subsidiary entities) in one letter, rather than in an escalating series of letters addressing new/different allegations against different entities.

Conversely, if your client is being accused of infringement by a corporation and attorney from a foreign forum, keep up the contacts and communications and invite more – they may temporarily incur short-term costs but help your client keep a declaratory judgment case you file in its home forum, which could decrease long-term larger costs.

Second, if you are accusing a foreign corporation of infringement and repeatedly corresponding with that company’s counsel, be mindful that every aspect of your correspondence or matter handling, beyond the merits, will be scrutinized in the context of a personal jurisdiction analysis, and there is no trophy for most communications; there may be more travel costs.

Third, remember that escalations of the engagement beyond mere communications could amount to your client’s purposeful availment of the accused infringer’s forum. Thus, beyond letters, emails or phone calls, transmission of draft complaints, submission of potential license agreements, requests for mediation, and identification of counsel who will prosecute an infringement action are contacts courts will scrutinize in the context of the personal jurisdiction analysis. And courts may not look favorably on clients whose counsel increase the scope and scale of their accusations only to later claim an unbearable burden in litigating in the home forum of the accused party.

In short, what may be regarded as mere zealous or creative advocacy for a client could, absent any intention towards this end, land the client in a foreign forum. To borrow from the well-known phrase, the road to a foreign forum is paved with good intentions.

About the author: Garrett M. Fahy is Senior Counsel and a member of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. He handles trademark, copyright, and patent litigation in a variety of commercial sectors and technologies.

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.

SCOTUS Grants Google’s Cert Petition in Oracle API Dispute

Author: Mary E. Csarny

On November 15, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Google v. Oracle, indicating potential resolution on the contentious litigation that has been dubbed Silicon Valley’s “Lawsuit of the Decade.”i On January 6, 2019, Google filed its Petitioner Brief, with Respondent Oracle’s brief due next month.

Background

As followers of this litigation will recall, Oracle sued Google in 2010, alleging Google’s use of the Java programing language and declarations (specifically 37 Java APIs) in building the Android platform amounted to copyright and patent infringement.ii A victory for Oracle would not only result in significant damages for unpaid royalties, but also impact the future of API use. At the District Court, a jury determined Google did infringe the copyright as to the compilable code for the 37 Java API packages, and then deadlocked on the issue of whether the use constituted fair use. The jury found no copyright infringement as to the documentation for the Java API packages, but found infringement as to one snippet of code. However, on the issue of copyrightability of the APIs generally (which was simultaneously tried to the presiding District Court judge), Judge William Alsup concluded that APIs were not copyrightable in the first place as a matter of law.iii The jury found no patent infringement.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit considered the Copyright Act’s legislative history explaining that literary works subject to copyright protection include computer programs to the extent that the expression of original ideas is distinguished from the ideas themselves.iv The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the structure, sequence, and organization of an API is copyrightable and remanded on the issue of whether Google’s use was a permissible fair use.v Following this reversal, Google filed its first petition for writ of certiorari, with the Supreme Court’s inviting the U.S. Solicitor General to express the United States’ views regarding whether the petition should be granted. The Court denied the petition in accordance with the Solicitor General’s position that no review was necessary.

On remand from the Federal Circuit, a jury determined Google’s use of the 37 Java APIs was protected by the fair use doctrine. Oracle appealed and the Federal Circuit overturned the jury verdict holding that, as a matter of law, Google’s use was not protected by the fair use doctrine.vi

Google’s second and current petition for a writ of certiorari raises two issues: (1) Whether copyright protection extends to a software interface; and (2) whether, as the jury found, the petitioner’s use of a software interface in the context of creating a new computer program constitutes fair use.

What’s Next

When viewed alongside its June 2019 grant of certiorari in Georgia v. Public Resource Org., Inc.vii concerning the copyrightability of legislative annotations in light of the government edicts doctrine, the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari may indicate a willingness to re-examine copyrightability. The Court’s 21st century copyright jurisprudence has generally favored strengthening protections for copyright holders.viii Indeed, its initial refusal to grant Google’s first petition for certiorari following the Federal Circuit’s holding that APIs are copyrightable at least passively reinforced a broad approach to copyrightability.

The Court’s most recent copyright decisions rely on textualist reasoning and were both unanimously decided. It upheld the lower court’s reliance on the plain text of 17 U.S.C. § 411(a) requiring “registration” (rather than application for registration) to occur before commencing an infringement suit in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, et al.I,ix and limited the statutory damages for copyright infringement to those six categories of costs provided in the federal statute authorizing district courts to award costs in Rimini Street, Inc., et al. v. Oracle USA, Inc., et al.x Although the present matter does not present so obvious a conclusion as Fourth Estate and demands a more technical analysis than required in Rimini Street, the Justices’ textualism in both cases instruct followers of this matter to give particular credence to the parties’ textual arguments. Although much of the narrative surrounding this litigation has focused on the practical impact on technology and innovation,xi the litigants focus briefing on the Copyright Act’s text and judicial interpretation. Google’s petition for certiorari cites the Copyright Act’s exclusion of “method of operation[s]”xii and the correlating legislative history arguably demonstrating Congress’ intent “‘to make clear that the expression adopted by the programmer is the copyrightable element in a computer program’ while ‘the actual processes or methods embodied in the program are not within the scope of the copyright law.’”xiii Oracle, too, presents at least one textualist argument, pointing out that the Copyright Act covers “literary works,” defined as works “expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols.”xiv

The Court’s last attempt to consider whether innovation in the software space was entitled to copyright protection ended in deadlock,xv but the court has since replaced six justices who appear willing to reface this challenge. Justice Kavanaugh has entered the fray of copyright jurisprudence by authoring the recent Rimini Street, Inc. decision and before his appointment Justice Gorsuch faced the issue of copyrightability of new technologies in the 10th Circuit, where he faced the issue of whether a party held a valid copyright on digital models.xvi He drew guidance from prior Supreme Court reasoningxvii regarding the copyrightability of photographs, finding instructive the Court’s application of copyrightability standards to the new technology of the day.xviii Justice Gorsuch’s conclusion in Meshwerks, that digital models can possess the originality required to be fully protectable in copyright but the particular digital models were not copyrightable might predict his approach to the copyrightability issue in Google v. Oracle.xix

No matter the outcome on the copyrightability and fair use questions raised in Google’s petition, the decision in this case is a much anticipated resolution to the decades-long dispute and could mark a new beginning for the use of software interfaces.
__________________________________________________________________________

i Ward, Aaron “Google v. Oracle: Silicon Valley Braces for ‘Lawsuit of the Decade’ as Google Petitions for Cert to decide API Copyrightability” Jolt Digest (March 13, 2019). https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/google-v-oracle-silicon-valley-braces-for-lawsuit-of-the-decade-as-google-petitions-for-cert-to-decide-api-copyrightability.
ii Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc., 3:10-cv-03561-WHA (N.D. Cal. Aug. 12, 2010).
iii Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc., 872 F. Supp. 2d 974 (N.D. Cal. 2012).
iv Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc., 750 F.3d 1339, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
v Id., 1381.
vi Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google LLC, 886 F.3d 1179, 1210 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
vii Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 139 S. Ct. 2746 (June 24, 2019).
viii See “Institutional Fracture” Minnesota Law Review 102:803, 820-821 (2017).
ix Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, et al., 139 S.Ct. 881 (2019)
x Rimini Street, Inc., et al. v. Oracle USA, Inc., et al, 139 S. Ct. 873 (2019).
xi See Hardy, Quentin “Oracle-Google Dispute Goes to Heart of Open-Source Software” NY Times (May 19, 2016) (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/technology/oracle-google-dispute-goes-to-heart-of-open-source-software.html); Liptak, Adam “Supreme Court to Hear Google and Oracle Copyright Case” NY Times (Nov. 15, 2019) (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/supreme-court-google-oracle.html).
xii 17 U.S.C. 102(b)
xiii Supreme Court Docket No. 18-956, Petition for a Writ of Certiorari p. 17 (citing H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 56-57 (1976); S. Rep. No. 473, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 54 (1975)).
xiv Supreme Court Docket No. 18-956, Brief in Opposition, p. 13 (citing 17 U.S.C. 102(a); 101).
xv Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int’l, Inc., 516 U.S. 233 (1996)
xvi Meshwerks, Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc., 528 F.3d 1258 (10th Cir. 2008)
xvii Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 58 (1884)
xviii Id., 1263.
xix Id. 1266.

Amazon’s Patent Infringement Evaluation Program

Author: David Heckadon

Amazon has been quietly testing a program called “Utility Patent Neutral Evaluation” that allows patent owners who sell their products on Amazon’s website to challenge potential infringers who also sell products on Amazon’s website. At present, the program is by invitation only. The overall objective of the program is to reach decisions very quickly and relatively affordably. Since almost half of American retail ecommerce sales already passes through Amazon’s website (projected to reach 50% by 20211), the ability to have a patent infringer’s product quickly and fairly cheaply removed from the website is a very powerful tool for patent owners. Patent owners who simply don’t have the money to spend on a traditional patent lawsuit can now go after their infringers efficiently on Amazon.

The system itself is simple, and the full decision process takes no more than 4 months. First, the patent owner approaches Amazon and identifies the potential infringer (or infringers), selects 1 claim of a US utility patent that it believes is infringed, and requests an evaluation. The patent owner must also identify the purported infringing product by its Amazon Standard Identification Number or “ASIN.”

The patent owner pays Amazon $4,000. Amazon then notifies the potential infringer(s) and the infringer(s) must also pay $4,000 to Amazon.

The patent claims are then evaluated by an attorney selected by Amazon, and this attorney must return a decision in a matter of weeks. If the patent claim is found to cover the accused product, then Amazon will remove the product from its website within 10 days of the decision. The accused product will also be removed from the website if its seller does not agree to participate in the program.

The program is very streamlined. There are no depositions, no discovery, no document requests, no hearings, no trial, and no experts. There is also no appeal process. The whole process done in writing.

First, the patent owner contacts Amazon to start the process. After Amazon agrees to start the process, the patent owner has only 21 days to submit its arguments (limited to discussing 1 claim from 1 US utility patent). These written arguments are limited to 20 pages (not including claim charts or exhibits). The patent owner must pay the $4,000 to Amazon within 2 weeks of the start of the program.

Next, the seller must also pay $4,000 and is given 14 days to respond. The seller’s response is limited to 15 pages (not including claim charts or exhibits). The possible arguments the seller can made are actually quite limited. The seller can argue only: (a) non-infringement; or (b) invalidity based on sales of the patented product more than 1 year before the patent’s earliest effective filing date; or (c) that the patent has already been invalidated by a court or the Patent Office. Moreover, should the seller argue that the patented product has been on sale for more than a year before the patent’s earliest effective filing date, the evidence presented must be independently verifiable (i.e., affidavits and declarations are not permitted evidence). Should the seller decide not to participate in the program, or fail to pay their $4,000, the seller’s goods are automatically removed from Amazon’s website.

Finally, the patent owner is given 7 days to submit an optional reply to the seller’s response. No modifications to the above 21-day, 14-day, and 7-day schedule are permitted. Once the clock starts ticking, it cannot be turned off.

The attorney evaluator selected by Amazon is given only 14 days to make their decision. To further speed up the process, the attorney evaluator only has to provide the basis for their findings if they find in in favor of the seller. The evaluator uses a “likely or not likely” standard to determine infringement.

Any product determined to be infringing will be removed from Amazon’s website within 10 days of the evaluator’s final decision. Neither the patent owner nor the seller can contact the attorney evaluator regarding their final decision. The entire process is bound by confidentiality agreements and all parties agree not to seek discovery from the other participants, from Amazon, or from the attorney evaluator after the process has concluded.

After the evaluator makes their final decision, the winner then gets its money back, and the loser’s $4,000 is used to pay the attorney. Amazon states that it does not keep any of the money.

Of course, Amazon cannot run its own court system, and it cannot limit the rights of plaintiffs and defendants in court or at the Patent Office. As such, the patent owner can still go to court and sue for infringement (and damages). Conversely, the accused infringer can still go to court and file a Declaratory Judgement action or go to PTAB for a review of the patent in question. Amazon can’t limit these rights, and Amazon confirms it will respect all judgments and arbitrations concerning the patent in question. Amazon also states that it will comply with the evaluator’s decision pending any litigation or settlement. However, Amazon’s huge market power as the world’s largest retailer makes this new system a very fast, cost-efficient, and effective tool to shut infringing products out of the market.

In addition to pleasing patent owners, this new program can also be good news for defendant sellers. Specifically, prior to this program, sellers’ products were simply removed from Amazon’s website after a charge of patent infringement. As such, these sellers had no recourse other than obtaining a declaration of non-infringement from a federal court.

One important limitation of this program is that it can only be used to challenge products that are sold by third-party sellers on Amazon’s website. As such, it cannot be used against products that are sold by Amazon itself. Currently, about 50% of the sales made through Amazon’s website are made by Amazon itself. 2 3 What this means is that only about half of the goods sold on Amazon’s website can be challenged under this new program (however, that percentage is expected to continually increase as Amazon continues to diversify to more sellers).

The program also has provisions to deal with multiple sellers of the accused infringing products. Specifically, each accused seller has to put up $4,000 to participate in the program. If none of the accused sellers remits its $4,000, then the accused goods are automatically removed from Amazon’s website. If multiple sellers lose, the $4,000 cost is divided evenly among them. Interestingly, however, if more than $4,000 has been paid by multiple sellers, the surplus funds received (i.e.: above the $4,000 paid to the attorney evaluator) are to be given to a charity selected by Amazon.

Other interesting provisions include instances where if the patent owner lists multiple products and only some of them are found to infringe the patent, then the patent owner pays $2,000, and the infringing sellers pay $2,000 (in even shares). Also, if the patent owner and the seller settle prior to the evaluation decision, the evaluator gets $1,000 (or $2,000 if settlement occurs after the patent owner’s reply has been filed).

Lastly, as can be seen, this new program is fundamentally different from traditional “early neutral evaluation” since it is not trying to get the parties to an agreement, or provide a non-binding evaluation of the merits of the case. It is also different from traditional mediation since the program is not intended to get the parties to settle. Amazon’s objective is speed and containment of cost in reaching a decision, not on trying to avoid costly litigation.

Amazon may now be the first private business entity to run its own patent infringement dispute resolution system. It will prove interesting to see what happens next as this system expands and is used more and more. It will also prove very interesting to see whether other retailers will try to develop similar programs or work together to build a system that they could all collaborate on.

About the author: David Heckadon is a registered patent attorney and a member of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. Mr. Heckadon has a degree in mechanical engineering, and his practice focuses on patent prosecution, with particular emphasis on software technologies. Mr. Heckadon’s biography can be found here.
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1 fortune.com/2017/04/10/amazon-retail/
2 https://www.geekwire.com/2019/first-time-amazons-online-sales-make-less-half-entire-business/
3 https://www.statista.com/statistics/259782/third-party-seller-share-of-amazon-platform/

Supreme Court Holds Lost Foreign Profits Available under §284 in Connection with Foreign Contracts

Author: John Teresinski

In WesternGeco LLC v. Ion Geophysical Corp, 585 U. S. ____ (2018), the Supreme Court weighed in again on patent matters, ruling that lost profits may be awarded for patent infringement under 35 U.S.C.  §284 based on contracts outside of the U.S. While U.S. federal laws and U.S. Patents are generally presumed to apply to U.S. territories, the Court in WesternGeco found that lost profits are recoverable for infringement resulting from a U.S. activity of shipping infringing components of a patent invention overseas. The decision marks a broadening of potential damages available to patent owners for infringement.

The case arose from a patent infringement suit initiated by WesternGeco1 asserting its patents directed to technology for ocean floor surveying. WesternGeco claimed to be the only surveyor using its patented lateral-steering technology. In 2007, ION Geophysical Corporation began manufacturing components in the U.S. for a similar competing system and then shipping the components abroad to create surveying systems that were indistinguishable from WesternGeco’s. At trial, WesternGeco proved it lost 10 surveying contracts due to ION’s infringement. WesternGeco was awarded damages of $12.5 million in royalties and $93.4 million in lost profits.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the award of lost-profits damages. This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court and after bouncing back to the Federal Circuit, the Court granted certiorari to determine the scope of the extraterritorial application of 35 U.S.C. §271(f).

In its decision, the Court discussed the two-step framework for deciding questions of extraterritoriality of U.S. statutes. The Court concluded that conduct relevant to the statutory focus is domestic. The Court proceeded to discuss §284 regarding damages remedies and the statutory framework for infringement under §271(f). In brief, the Court concluded that exporting components from the U.S. was a domestic act of infringement under §271(f)(2). The Court also distinguished the current case from damages claims that are based entirely on injury suffered abroad.2 The decision was authored by Justice Thomas and joined by a majority of the Court (7-2). Justice Gorsuch authored a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Breyer arguing that the Court’s decision improperly extends the reaches of patent infringement.

Practitioners will surely cite WesternGeco as a basis for broadening damages claims and, in particular, claims for lost profits when there are international sales and contracts. In patent cases, lost profits awards can often surpass the amounts of a reasonable royalty. While it remains to be seen whether this case will dramatically broaden damages awards, it is likely that WesternGeco will be limited to cases with similar factual scenarios to support enhanced damages. The Court noted the nearly indistinguishable nature of the infringing products and the limited developers of the technology. A copy of the Court’s opinion can be found here.

About the author: John Teresinski is a registered patent attorney and a member of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. His practice focuses on IP portfolio management, utility and design patent procurement, non-infringement and invalidity analyses, post grant proceedings, patent enforcement, and defense of matters for technology clients, with an emphasis on electrical and electromechanical, user experience, semiconductor, wireless communication, and display technologies in the computer and hardware industries.
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1 WesternGeco is a subsidiary of Schlumberger NV, the world’s largest oilfield services provider.
2 Citing RJR Nabisco, Inc., v. European Community,  579 U.S. ___,___ (2016) (Slip op., at 9).

The State of Design Patent Infringement Damages Calculations Following the Battle Between Apple and Samsung

Author: Mike Khoury

Many people have heard of the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung dating back to a 2011 Northern District of California lawsuit. In a legal battle that has lasted over 6 years, gone through two jury trials, and endured appeals to the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, one issue remains uncertain: the measure by which to calculate damages in a design patent infringement case.

In 2011, Apple sued Samsung for infringing upon iPhone design patents. The following year, a jury awarded Apple $399 million in design patent infringement damages—Samsung’s entire profit from sales of the infringing phones. Samsung appealed, arguing that the jury’s damage award should have been limited to only part of the profit (as only part of the phone’s design was copied from Apple). After the Federal Circuit affirmed the jury’s award, Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., 786 F.3d 983 (Fed. Cir. 2015), the Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed. Samsung Elecs. Co. v. Apple, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 429, 434 (2016).

At the center of the Supreme Court’s decision is the damages provision specific to design patents under 35 U.S.C. § 289. In relevant part, section 289 reads: “Whoever during the term of a patent for a design, without license of the owner, (1) applies the patented design, or any colorable imitation thereof, to any article of manufacture for the purpose of sale, or (2) sells or exposes for sale any article of manufacture to which such design or colorable imitation has been applied shall be liable to the owner to the extent of his total profit[.]” (emphasis added).

In interpreting section 289 for the first time, the Supreme Court explained that “[a]rriving at a damages award under § 289 . . . involves two steps. First, identify the ‘article of manufacture’ to which the infringed design has been applied. Second, calculate the infringer’s total profit made on that article of manufacture.” Samsung Electronics, 137 S. Ct. at 434. As used in section 289, the term “article of manufacture,” the Supreme Court continued, “encompasses both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product.” Id. In other words, “reading ‘article of manufacture’ in § 289 to cover only an end product sold to a consumer gives too narrow a meaning to the phrase.” Id. at 436 (emphasis added). However, not surprisingly, the Supreme Court stopped short of establishing a test for identifying the article of manufacture under section 289 and remanded to the Federal Circuit for reassessing damages. The Federal Circuit, in turn, remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 678 Fed. Appx. 1012 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 7, 2017).

The case is now back before Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California. On October 22, 2017, after Apple and Samsung briefed the issue, Judge Koh ordered a new trial. In her order, Judge Koh adopted a test proposed by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court appeal in this case. “The test for determining the article of manufacture for the purpose of § 289 shall be the following four factors: [1] The scope of the design claimed in the plaintiff’s patent, including the drawing and written description; [2] The relative prominence of the design within the product as a whole; [3] Whether the design is conceptually distinct from the product as a whole; and [4] The physical relationship between the patented design and the rest of the product, including whether the design pertains to a component that a user or seller can physically separate from the product as a whole, and whether the design is embodied in a component that is manufactured separately from the rest of the product, or if the component can be sold separately.” Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 11-CV-01846-LHK, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177199, at *111 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 22, 2017)

This test is short of a victory for either side. As Judge Koh notes, and as expected, the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion on identifying both the relevant article of manufacture as well as the amount of total profit on the sale of that article. Id. If plaintiff succeeds in meeting both, only then does the burden shift to defendant to present evidence of an alternative article of manufacture and any deductible expenses. Id. at *111-12.

To date, it remains unclear whether this test will withstand scrutiny. That said, given that both Apple and Samsung suggested in their briefs at least some level of acceptance of the test, it is unlikely either party will challenge it. It is likely, however, that Apple and Samsung will settle their dispute short of another trial. A settlement means that, at least for now, the test will not be challenged. Since Judge Koh’s order is not binding on any court, it will be interesting to see whether other courts in the Northern District and within the Ninth Circuit will adopt the same test. But even then, short of an appeal to the Federal Circuit, the issue remains unresolved. For now, though, Judge Koh’s order provides some much-needed guidance.

A more promising appeal, however, comes from Columbia Sportswear North America, Inc. v. Seirus Innovative Accessories, Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-1781-HZ (S.D. Cal. 2017), a Southern District of California design patent infringement case and the first case involving a jury verdict awarding damages after the Supreme Court’s Samsung decision. Like Judge Koh, Judge Marco Hernandez in Columbia Sportswear also adopted the DOJ’s test, and on September 29, 2017, the jury awarded Columbia $3 million in damages.

Judgement in Columbia Sportswear was entered on November 22, 2017. The parties have 30 days to appeal.

Stay tuned.

Further Venue Guidance for Patent Infringement Suits

Author: Conor McElroy

As anticipated, the Supreme Court’s May 22, 2017 TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, 581 U.S. ____ (2017) ruling, which recognized 28 U.S.C. §1400(b) as the exclusive statute governing venue in patent infringement actions, has presented district and circuit courts with the opportunity to provide further guidance on §1400(b). Section 1400(b) states, “[a]ny civil action for patent infringement may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” Before TC Heartland, the vast majority of cases only addressed the first prong (“where the defendant resides”) due to the fact that the first prong’s standard was relatively easy to meet. Essentially, venue was proper anywhere a defendant was subject to personal jurisdiction. TC Heartland changed the analysis by determining that “resides” for purposes of §1400(b) only includes the state of incorporation. As a result, more litigants increasingly rely on the second prong (“where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business”), which is therefore, being addressed and analyzed more by the courts.

On September 11, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware issued two decisions regarding venue challenges in patent cases. In Boston Sci. Corp. v. Cook Grp., Inc., No. 15-980-LPS-CJB, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146126 (D. Del. Sept. 11, 2017) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Mylan Pharms., Inc., No. 17-379-LPS, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146372 (D. Del. Sept. 11, 2017), the District Court gave instructions on various aspects of post-TC Heartland §1400(b), including the burden of proof for a venue challenge, and whether TC Heartland effected an intervening change of law for waiver purposes. As for its analysis of the second prong of §1400(b), the court looked to the words of the statute, as well as some of the few decisions that applied the second prong, and determined that a permanent and continuous physical presence is required. In further elaborating, the Court noted circumstances that did not amount to a permanent and continuous presence. Specifically, simply doing business in a district or being registered to do business in a district, merely demonstrating that a business entity has sufficient “minimum contacts” with a district for purposes of personal jurisdiction, maintaining a website that allows consumers to purchase a defendant’s goods within the district, and simply shipping goods into a district are all insufficient to demonstrate that a defendant has a regular and established place of business in the district. In Boston Scientific, the court granted the defendants’ motion to transfer the case because there was not a regular and established place of business in Delaware, while in Bristol-Myers Squibb, the court ordered further discovery into how the defendant operated its business.

On September 21, 2017, the Federal Circuit also issued post-TC Heartland guidance. In In re Cray Inc., No. 2017-129, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 18398 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 21, 2017), the court reversed the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas’s denial of motion to transfer. In doing so, the court identified three general requirements relevant to the §1400(b) “regular and established place of business” venue inquiry. First, there must be a physical place in the district. This “place” need not be a formal office or store, but there must still be a physical, geographical location in the district from which the business of the defendant is carried out.” Therefore, mere virtual spaces or electronic communications do not meet the definition of “place.”

Second, the place must be a regular and established place of business. “Regular” means the business operates in a “steady, uniform, orderly, and methodical manner,” while “established” requires that the place in question must be “settled certainly, or fixed permanently.” Finally, the business must be “the place of the defendant.” In other words, “the defendant must establish or ratify the place of business.” Relevant considerations for this factor include whether the defendant owns or leases the place and whether the defendant conditioned employment on the employee’s continued residence in the place of business. In applying these venue requirements to the specifics of the case, the Federal Circuit found that the facts involving an employee’s home being located in the Eastern District of Texas “do not show that [the defendant] maintains a regular and established place of business in the Eastern District of Texas; they merely show that there exists within the district a physical location where an employee of the defendant carries on certain work for his employer.” Thus, the court ruled that case should have been transferred.

While the foregoing cases help to clarify how venue challenges in patent infringement cases may be evaluated, the question of proper venue is often a fact-specific inquiry. Nevertheless, as case law after TC Heartland grows, and as more and more §1400(b) challenges are litigated, the contours and confines of what the “regular and established place of business” prong requires will be clarified. But for now, TC Heartland and cases following it continue to adopt a more restrictive view on venue and the requirements for proper venue.

TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods: “Residency” in Patent Infringement Suits

Author: Conor McElroy

On May 22, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that residency for domestic corporations is determined by its state of incorporation for venue purposes in patent infringement suits. The unanimous decision (from which Justice Neil Gorsuch abstained) reversed the Federal Circuit’s finding that the general venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1391(c), and its requirements for residency, applied to patent infringement suits. Instead, the Court ruled that the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. §1400(b), is the exclusive statute governing venue in patent infringement actions.

The case, TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, 581 U.S. ____ (2017) involved Kraft Foods (“Respondent”), organized under Delaware law with a principal place of business in Illinois, filing a patent infringement suit against TC Heartland (“Petitioner”), which is headquartered in Indiana and organized under Indiana Law, in the District Court for the District of Delaware. Petitioner argued venue was improper in Delaware since it did not meet the definition of “resid[e]” as set forth in §1400(b) and interpreted in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp., 353 U.S. 222 (1957).  The Federal Circuit upheld the District Court’s rejection of Petitioner’s argument based on amendments to 28 U.S.C. §1391 which deem a defendant to have “residency” if it is subject to personal jurisdiction, a test which was met here based on Petitioner’s shipments of allegedly infringing products into Delaware.

In reversing, the Supreme Court analyzed §1400(b), past and present versions of §1391, and case law interpreting the statutes.  According to § 1400(b), “[a]ny civil action for patent infringement may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” For the definition of “resides,” the Court looked to Fourco, which determined “resides” for purposes of §1400(b) only includes the state of incorporation. The inquiry could not end there however. According to the Federal Circuit, subsequent amendments to §1391 have made it applicable to patent infringement cases. Section 1391(c) now provides that, “[f]or all venue purposes,” entities, “whether or not incorporated, shall be deemed to reside, if a defendant, in any judicial district in which such defendant is subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction with respect to the civil action in question.” Therefore, as concluded by the Federal Circuit, §1391(c), not Fourco, provides the definition of “resides” in §1400(b). To bolster this conclusion, the Federal Circuit cited VE Holding Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co., 917 F. 2d 1574 (1990), which ruled that similar earlier amendments to §1391 affected the meaning of §1400(b).

The Supreme Court held that the Fourco interpretation of §1400(b) is still the authority. “The current version of §1391 does not contain any indication that Congress intended to alter the meaning of §1400(b) as interpreted in Fourco,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion of the unanimous Court. According to the Court, Congress customarily provides a clear indication that it intends to make a change of that kind in the text of the amended provision. With no such indication present here, it was clear to the Court that §1400(b) was not altered by changes to §1391. Furthermore, the Court also noted that the 2011 change to §1391 includes a savings clause stating that it does not apply when “otherwise provided by law.” As a result, the Court held that §1391 “expressly contemplates that certain venue statutes may retain definitions of ‘resides’ that conflict with its default definition.” Therefore, the venue provision found in §1400(b), and the definition of “resides” found in Fourco, apply to patent infringement suits.

A copy of the Court’s slip opinion can be found here.

TC Heartland Likely to Bring a Sea Change in Patent Venue Law and the End of Forum Shopping

On December 14, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Food Brands Group LLC to decide the following issue:

Whether the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), which provides that patent infringement actions ‘may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides[,]’ is the sole and exclusive provision governing venue in patent infringement actions and is not to be supplemented by the statute governing ‘[v]enue generally,’ 28 U.S.C. § 1391, which has long contained a subsection (c) that, where applicable, deems a corporate entity to reside in multiple judicial districts.

The determination of this issue has potentially significant consequences for accused infringers and their counsel who have routinely faced patent suits in distant venues with plaintiff-friendly local rules and procedures that together drive settlements often unrelated to the value of the asserted technology. As the Petitioner TC Heartland (“Petitioner”) and the amici curiae in support of the cert petition have noted, the Federal Circuit’s unwavering adherence to its holding in VE Holdings Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co., 917 F.2d 1574 (Fed. Cir. 1990) has created conditions that allow rampant forum shopping by plaintiffs and even forum selling by certain district courts. Petitioner and the amici argue that forum shopping and forum selling undermines the economic utility of patent system and ultimately destabilizes public confidence in the judiciary. These important policy concerns, together with strong legal arguments that the Federal Circuit’s holding in VE Holding was misguided, will likely signal the end of an era in patent litigation and restore treatment of patent venue to a pre-1990 scope.

TC Heartland is an Indiana limited liability company headquartered in Indiana. Kraft Food Brands (“Respondent”) is organized and exists under Delaware law and has its principal place of business in Illinois. Respondent sued Petitioner in the United States District court for the District of Delaware, alleging Petitioner’s liquid water enhancer products infringed three patents owned by Respondent. Petitioner moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2). Petitioner also moved to either dismiss the action or transfer venue to the Southern District of Indiana under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1404 and 1406. Petitioner contended that the accused products were designed and manufactured in Indiana and that a mere 2% of its sales in 2014 were shipped to destinations in Delaware at the sole direction of one of its national customers based in Arkansas. Petitioner therefore argued that because it had no local presence in Delaware, was not registered to do business there, and had not solicited sales in Delaware, Delaware was not the “judicial district where the [Petitioner] resides” within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b). Petitioner also argued that the district court was bound by the Supreme Court’s opinion in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prods. Corp., 353 U.S. 222 (1957), and that the 2011 amendments to § 1391 repealed the statutory language upon which the Federal Circuit’s decision in VE Holding relied in circumventing Fourco.

In the proceedings below, the Magistrate Judge determined that it had specific personal jurisdiction over Petitioner based on a stream-of-commerce type theory under Beverly Hills Fan Co. v. Royal Sovereign Corp., 21 F.3d 1558, 1571 (Fed. Cir. 1994). The Magistrate Judge also rejected Petitioner’s arguments that the 2011 amendment to 28 U.S.C. § 1391 altered the general venue statute and thereby nullified the Federal Circuit’s holding in VE Holding. Accordingly, the judge held that venue was proper based upon a finding of personal jurisdiction.

The district court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s report in full and expressly concluded that Congress’ 2011 amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 1391 “did not undo” the Federal Circuit’s decision in VE Holding. Petitioner timely petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s order, stating that “[t]he arguments raised concerning venue have been firmly resolved by VE Holding, a settled precedent for over 25 years[,]” and asserted that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of patent venue in Fourco is “no longer the law.”

Taking a Step Back: Brief History of Patent Venue Law

Under Section 48 of the Judiciary Act of 1897, Congress limited jurisdiction in patent cases to districts where the defendant inhabited or had a place of business and committed infringing acts. (Act of March 3, 1897, c. 395, 29 Stat. 695.) In 1942, the Supreme Court unequivocally concluded that “Congress did not intend the Act of 1897 to dovetail with the general provisions relating to the venue of civil suits, but rather that it alone should control venue in patent infringement proceedings.” Stonite Prods. C. v. Melvin Lloyd Co., 315 U.S. 561, 563 (1942). Then, in 1948, Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), which, consistent with the Judiciary Act of 1897 and the Supreme Court’s holding in Stonite, provided:

Any civil action for patent infringement may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.

The newly codified title 28 also included a provision, § 1391, for “venue generally,” which stated in relevant part:

(c) A corporation may be sued in any judicial district in which it is incorporated or licensed to do business or is doing business, and such judicial district shall be regarded as the residence of such corporation for venue purposes.

In 1957, following a circuit split that developed over whether corporate residence under § 1391 applied to the term “resides” in § 1400(b), the Supreme Court held that the patent venue statute was to be read in isolation and not within the context of the general venue statute: “28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) . . . is the sole and exclusive provision controlling venue in patent infringement actions, and that it is not to be supplemented by the provisions of 28 U.S.C. [§] 1391(c).” Fourco , 353 U.S. at . The Supreme Court’s holding in Fourco has never been overruled.

In 1988, Congress changed the statutory language in § 1391 from defining residence “for venue purposes” to defining residence “for purposes of venue under this chapter.” Petitioner and amici in support of the cert petition argue that there is no legislative history to suggest that Congress intended this minor change to the statutory language to supplant Supreme Court precedent or otherwise impact the patent venue statute. In fact, the legislative history shows a Congressional intent to further constrain corporate venue rather than expand it: “[A] corporation that confines its activities to Los Angeles (Central California) should not be required to defend in San Francisco (Northern California).” H.R. Rep. No. 100-889, at 70 (1988). Nonetheless, in 1990, the Federal Circuit deviated from longstanding Supreme Court precedents and the plain language of the statute when it determined that the ministerial amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 1391 in 1988 effectively overruled Stonite and Fourco. VE Holding, 917 F.2d at 1584. The Federal Circuit held that “the first test for venue under § 1400(b) with respect to a defendant that is a corporation, in light of the 1988 amendment to § 1391(c), is whether the defendant was subject to personal jurisdiction in the district of suit at the time the action was commenced.”

As a result of the Federal Circuit’s holding in VE Holding, numerous amici curiae argue that the Federal Circuit effectively expanded the scope of 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) to permit filing of patent lawsuits in any federal district court where the accused products are sold. See, e.g., In re TC Heartland, LLC, No. 2016-105, at 10 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 29, 2016) (holding that jurisdiction is proper in a patent suit “where a nonresident defendant purposefully shipped accused products into the forum through an established distribution channel and the cause of action for patent infringement was alleged to arise out of those activities”). In at least one recent case, the Federal Circuit held that there was personal jurisdiction in Delaware over a defendant who had never sold an accused product in Delaware because the defendant’s application for drug approval indicated a prospective desire to sell the drug nationally. Acorda Therapeutics Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., 817 F.3d 755, 764 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The Federal Circuit concluded this planned future conduct satisfied the minimum contacts requirement, and nothing in the court’s opinion suggests that such conduct would not give rise to personal jurisdiction in every jurisdiction. Id. at 762-63.

Finally, in 2011, Congress enacted further amendments to § 1391, adding section (a), entitled “Applicability of Section.” This section currently reads: “Except as otherwise provided by law . . . (1) this section shall govern the venue of all civil actions brought in district courts of the United States . . . .” 28 U.S.C. § 1391(a)(1) (2012). Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court interpreted § 1391 as governing venue where a more specific venue provision is lacking. See Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, 134 S. Ct. 568, 577 n.2 (2013) (noting “[s]ection 1391 governs ‘venue generally,’ that is, in cases where a more specific venue provision does not apply” and citing by way of example 28 U.S.C. § 1400 as “identifying proper venue for copyright and patent suits”).

TC Heartland’s petition for writ of certiorari seeks a restoration of Supreme Court’s interpretation of § 1400(b) under Fourco and reversal of the decision below.

Arguments in Support of TC Heartland

The brief of amici curiae 56 professors of law and economics persuasively argues that VE Holding ignores fundamental canons of statutory construction, namely that Congress does not alter vital details of a regulatory schemes by vague changes to ancillary provisions, and that a statute should not be read so as to render parts of it mere surplusage. For example, under the Federal Circuit’s interpretation in VE Holding, the latter half of § 1400(b) would be largely superfluous. That is, the term “resides” in § 1400(b) must have some definition other than “a regular and established place of business,” since § 1400(b) already provides that patent venue is proper where the defendant has a “regular and established placed of business.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as amicus curiae argues that the Federal Circuit’s holding in VE Holding should be overruled in light of existing Supreme Court precedent and the plain language of the patent venue statute in order to cure – in its view – the fundamental lack of fairness and protection to defendants. The EFF also persuasively argues that whereas personal jurisdiction provides sufficiently reliable limits on personal jurisdiction in non-patent suits, the same does not hold true for patent cases because the Federal Circuit has also more-or-less adopted an expansive stream-of-commerce-type theory, holding personal jurisdiction is proper where “defendants, acting in consort, placed the accused [product] in the stream of commerce, they knew the likely destination of the products, and their conduct and connections with the forum state were such that they should reasonably have anticipated being brought into court there.” Beverly Hills Fan, 21 F.3d at 1566. Therefore, the current state of Federal Circuit law often permits essentially nationwide personal jurisdiction.

Upending the (Un)intended Consequences of VE Holding

TC Heartland and the amici in support of TC Heartland’s petition argue forcefully that the consequences of the Federal Circuit’s holding in VE Holding have been overwhelmingly negative and contend that virtually limitless venue under the VE Holding construct has corrupted the underpinnings of the patent system. Whether this is an overly dramatic view of patent law may depend on what side of the courtroom a particular patent litigator sits, but certain underlying facts cannot be disputed. For example, it is true that the Eastern District of Texas still sees a disproportionate number of patent case filings. On average, a quarter of all patent cases are filed in that district – one with a relatively small population and relatively few companies – and in 2015, this figure spiked to 44% of all patent-infringement cases. (By contrast, the Northern District of California, a district of more than double the population and home to many companies, sees only 4-5% of all patent-infringement cases filed annually.) In the Eastern District of Texas’s banner year of 2015, Judge Rodney Gilstrap, referred to as the “busiest patent judge” in the country, heard a quarter of all patent cases filed nationwide. TC Heartland argues that this kind of undue case concentration diminishes the integrity of the patent system. The amici agree, pointing to nuisance-value settlements that arise when patentees have unfettered ability to file in the Eastern District of Texas and then take advantage of the local rules to extract settlements tied to the costs of litigation rather than the value of the asserted technology.

The amici also argue that the Eastern District of Texas, among other districts, have been attempting to attract patent-infringement cases through the use of patent-holder-friendly local rules, standing orders, and other judge-specific practices. For instance, TC Heartland and the amici argue that the time to rule on motions to transfer (150 additional days on average) and the timing and scope of discovery place undue settlement pressure on accused infringers. They argue that ultimately the whole system suffers when monetary settlements are reached as a result of defendants seeking to avoid the burden and cost of discovery and protracted litigation instead of a good faith belief in the legitimacy of the patented technology and its value to society. TC Heartland seeks to upend these practices through its appeal. At the end of the day, these policy arguments regarding the integrity of the overall system may be more persuasive to the Supreme Court justices than any statutory interpretation arguments advanced in the appeal.

The Federal Circuit’s decisions and general confusion at the district court level have set the stage for the Supreme Court to settle this issue. This case promises to be particularly important for large companies accused of patent infringement, as the Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether they may be haled into any forum in the United States or instead into a limited number of venues under § 1400(b). The recent trend of the high court’s limiting access to the federal courts and its propensity for reversing the Federal Court over the last decade strongly suggest a decision in TC Heartland’s favor, a sea change in the practice of patent litigation, and the end of forum shopping in patent cases. Oral arguments in this appeal are set for Monday, March 27, 2017.

Apple v. Samsung – Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court has decided one of the most contentious ongoing legal battles, Samsung Electronics v. Apple, No. 15-777, slip op. (Dec. 6, 2016). On October 11, 2016, the two companies faced off on how much of a $399 million patent infringement award Samsung must pay. Samsung argued that the damages awarded in the case should be greatly reduced to just the profits attributable to the parts that infringed upon Apple’s patents, instead of profits based on the entire phone.

The underlying statute, 35 U.S.C. § 289, states that any person who applies a patented design “to any article of manufacture” is “liable . . . to the extent of his total profit.” The question at issue—one that the high court had not yet interpreted before this case—is the definition of “total profit”: Should the patent holder be entitled to damages based on profits from the entire device, or only profits attributable to the infringing parts?

The Federal Circuit had upheld the Northern District of California’s decision that Samsung’s product infringed Apple’s design and utility patents and diluted Apple’s trade dresses.1 The Court also upheld the district court’s damages award for the design patent infringement. The design patents were based on the design elements on the front face of the iPhone, the design features that extended to the bezel of the iPhone, and “the ornamental design for a graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof.” These elements served as the bases for the overall look of the first-generation iPhone in 2007, which, at the time, changed the way other companies began designing their phones. On appeal, Samsung relied on a basic causation argument that Apple had failed to establish that infringement of its limited design patents resulted in any Samsung sales or profits. The Federal Circuit rejected this argument, instead expressly holding that based on the statutory language and prior case law, Section 289 expressly authorized the award of the totality of profits from the article of manufacture bearing the patented design.2 The appellate court also expressly rejected Samsung’s argument that the damages should be limited to the portion of the sales attributed to the infringing product.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari for the limited question of the meaning of Section 289. The Justices’ questioning centered on how to create a test that determines what drives the sale of a product and subsequently what profits should be attributed to such component parts. A popular analogy compared the Volkswagen Beetle to the iPhone. Justice Kagan noted that, “nobody buys a car, even a Beetle, just because they like the way it looks,” but acknowledged that the primary reason for its success could be because of its design. Samsung argued that determining that a company is permitted damages based on total profit for infringing a narrow design patent could produce an absurd result. Samsung argued that, for example, if someone was found to infringe a design patent for a cup holder in a car, to permit them total profits on the sale of the whole car would be absurd.

On December 6, 2016, Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court, holding that the relevant “article of manufacture” for a Section 289 damage award should not be based on the end product sold to the consumer, but rather may be based only on a component of the product. Samsung Electronics v. Apple, No. 15-777, slip op. at 6.  Rejecting the Federal Circuit’s holding that “components of the infringing smartphones could not be the relevant article of manufacture because consumers could not purchase those components separately from the smartphones,” id. at 7-8, the Supreme Court instead held that “the ‘total profit’ for which Section 289 makes an infringer liable is thus all of the profit made from the prohibited conduct, that is, from the manufacture or sale of the ‘article of manufacture’ to which [the patented] design or colorable imitation has been applied,” id. at 5. To determine the calculations the high court created a two-part test: (1) identify the “articles of manufacture” to which the infringed design has been applied; and (2) calculate the infringer’s total profit made on that article of manufacture. Id. However, the Court declined to engage in any analysis of the two-part test and did not provide any guidance to district courts or the Federal Circuit on how to implement the test. Id. at 8. Thus, this area of law will continue to be shaped as the lower courts attempt to analyze damages under Section 289 with the new two-part test.

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1 Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 786 F.3d 983 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
2 Design patent infringement has long required a different calculation of damages than utility patent infringement. To calculate damages for infringement of utility patents, causation is required to be proved and damages are limited to lost profits caused by the infringement, whereas for infringement of design patents, damages equal to whole products sold were awarded. Section 284 states, “upon finding for the claimant the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonably royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer, together with interest and costs as fixed by the court.” 35 U.S.C. § 284.