Category: Damages
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New, More Popular Post-Grant Patent Challenges Drive Patent Generation Strategy
Patent Generation and Enforcement Before the Popularity of Post-Grant Proceedings Patent Owners adopt different approaches for drafting patent applications. For large companies a patent production line approach is frequently adopted which limits the cost and the commensurate drafting efforts on any particular application. There is a reasonable argument to use this “assembly line” approach for very large…
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Fractus SA Gets $23M Verdict Against Samsung in Antenna Patent Litigation
In Fractus, S.A. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al. (6:09-CV-203, EDTX), a jury gave a verdict of patent infringement of four different patents owned by Fractus S.A. against Samsung to the tune of $23,129,321 in damages. The jury found that Fractus proved the infringement was willful by clear and convincing evidence. The Verdict Form provides details as to…
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Can Post Grant Review Enhance Patent Quality?
We have all heard about the new post grant review (PGR) aspect of the patent reform legislation. It is supposed to provide a mechanism for review of the patent initiated in the first year of the patent’s issue. Please indulge me for a bit as I explore what this may mean for the patent system as a…
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Federal Circuit Decision in In re Tanaka
You might recall that we discussed the BPAI decision in In re Yasuhito Tanaka in an earlier post. On April 15, the Federal Circuit reversed the BPAI decision and remanded the matter for further proceedings in accordance with the opinion. The Federal Circuit held that a patent owner that retains original patent claims and adds new narrower claims in…
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“Past Damages” and Reexamination for Mature Patents
An earlier post discussed the impact of amendments in reexamination, but there are some dynamics we should explore for “mature” patents. A mature patent is an old patent that is close to expiration. (For example, a patent that has less than 5 years of patent term before expiration.) When a patent is asserted late in…
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In re Tanaka
Suppose you issued a patent with several claims, including dependent claims. Now, suppose you wished you had claimed and issued a certain dependent claim, but did not have it in the originally issued patent. That new dependent claim is narrower than your independent claim that issued, so this is not a case of a broadening reissue. Now…
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The Effect of Amendment in Reexam on Past Damages
Generally speaking, patent claims that are confirmed in reexamination without substantive changes retain all of the damages they would have obtained as if there was no reexam. [Note that there are always exceptional situations. For example, there are patent cases where a claim was not amended, but its scope was deemed to have been altered by cancellation…
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Patent Prosecution in View of Reexamination
In my last post I introduced reexamination briefly. Once you understand that patent claims can be cancelled in a reexamination, it begs the question of how patent applications and claims can be drafted to survive reexamination. I have both good news and bad news. THE BAD NEWS The bad news is that it is impossible to know all of the prior art…