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2015 Patent Decisions of the Federal Circuit American University Law Review Volume 65 Issue 4 Article 2 2016 2015 Patent Decisions of the Federal Circuit Craig E. Countryman Fish & Richardson P.C. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr Part of the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Countryman, Craig E. (2016) "2015 Patent Decisions of the Federal Circuit," American University Law Review: Vol. 65 : Iss. 4 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol65/iss4/2 This Area Summary is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington College of Law Journals & Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in American University Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 2015 Patent Decisions of the Federal Circuit This area summary is available in American University Law Review: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/ vol65/iss4/2 AREA SUMMARIES 2015 PATENT DECISIONS OF THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT CRAIG E. COUNTRYMAN* The Federal Circuit's patent law decisions in 2015 reflected several notable trends. The court decided many novel questions of statutory interpretation, encountered its first round of appeals from the new post-grant Patent Office Proceedings, and continued to wrestle with difficult questions regarding patent-eligibility. Several decisions began implementing the Supreme Court's new directives regardingclaim construction, indefiniteness, attorney fees, and inducement. This Article collects and summarizes the Federal Circuit's 2015 patent decisions and analyzes what many of them mean for the future. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................... ..... 771 I. Claim Construction .......................... ..... 775 * Principal, Fish & Richardson P.C.; J.D., 2006 UCLA School of Law; B.S. with honors, Chemistry, 2003, California Institute of Technology. I am grateful to Frank Albert, John Dragseth, Michael Kane, and Susan Coletti for helpful comments and discussions on the content of this Article. The views expressed here are my own and should not be attributed to my firm, any of my colleagues, or any of our clients. 769 770 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 65:769 A. Standard of Review............................775 B. Methodology..................................780 C. Section 112(6)................................785 II. Validity .......................... ................. 788 A. Patent-Eligible Subject Matter .................... 788 B. Anticipation..................................796 C. On Sale Bar...................................799 D. Public Use ..................... .............. 802 E. Obviousness..................................803 F. Written Description and Enablement .............. 809 G. Indefiniteness.................................812 H. Broadening Reissue............................818 I. Obviousness-Type Double-Patenting..........819 III. Infringement....................................821 A. Induced Infringement. .......................... 821 1. Intent to induce............................821 2. Affirmative acts ..................... ........ 824 B. joint Infringement .................................. 826 C. Doctrine of Equivalents ................................ 828 D. Section27 (g) ........................ ............ 831 V. Patent Office Appeals. .............................. 833 A. jurisdiction ..................................... 834 B. Claim Construction in IPR and CBM Proceedings. 839 1. Broadest reasonable interpretation...... ........ 840 2. The Federal Circuit's analysis of the Board's constructions ..................... ............. 843 C. Obviousness ......................... ............. 845 D. Claim Amendments .................... .............. 847 E. What Constitutes a "Covered Business Method" Patent.. 849 F. Procedural Issues in Post-Grant Proceedings................ 852 G. jurisdiction to Appeal from a Denial of Stay Pending CBM. 854 H. Decisions in Examination and Reexamination Proceedings...mati .............. ................ 855 I. Burden of Proof in Action Under § 145.. ............... 856 V. Equitable Defenses ............................. .... 857 A. Laches ........................................................... 857 B. Exhaustion ..................................... 861 VI. Remedies .............................................. 863 A. Reasonable Royalties ................................ 863 B. Lost Profits n....................................... 869 C. Attorney Fees .......................... ....... 874 D. Enhanced Damages................ ............ 877 20161 2015 PATENT DECISIONS 771 E. Design Patents ............ 883 F. Permanent Injunctions .................... ..... 884 VII. Procedural Issues ..................................... 888 A. Federal Jurisdiction .................... ........ 888 B. Preclusion Issues.............................. 891 C. Mootness .......................................... 893 D. Time to Appeal .......................... ..... 895 E. No Ability to Review a Patent Office's Revival Decision.. 897 F. No Jurisdiction to Review the Patent Office's Refusal to Terminate an Inter Partes Reexamination.................. 898 G. Exclusive Licensee Standing ...........................899 H. Requirement to Pursue Infringement in the Court of Claims. .............................. ......... 900 I. Finality............................... 901 J. Standing to Bring a False Marking Suit...... ....... 904 K. Court Review of Interference Proceedings ...... ..... 905 L. Standing to Correct Inventorship............ ..... 906 M. Personal Jurisdiction ............................... 907 N. Protective Order Modification.................... 908 VIII. Pharmaceutical and Biologics Litigation ............... 909 A. The Safe Harbor of 35 U.S.C. § 271 (e) ....... ......... 909 B. Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) .................................... 911 C. Generic Manufacturers' Standing to Seek Declaratory Relief ................................ ...... 915 IX. Design Patents ................................... 916 X. Patent Term Adjustment............. .................. 918 XI. International Trade Commission Authority .................. 921 A. Power to Address Inducement............... ..... 922 B. Digital Transmissions .................... ....... 926 C. Domestic Industry Must Be Assessed Quantitatively........ 929 D. Exclusion Order Civil Penalties ............. ...... 930 Conclusion .......................................... 932 INTRODUCTION The Patent Act is largely a statute from another era, one in which congressional pronouncements left large interstices for federal judges to fill. Novelty, obviousness, written description, enablement. Judges have historically developed and refined these patentability concepts as they see fit, for the statute provides little guidance or restriction on their authority. Patent law has mostly been common law. 772 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 65:769 However, 2015 saw the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit resolving many difficult questions of statutory interpretation. Several questions related to the America Invents Act (AIA),' which was enacted in 2011, had its post-grant review proceedings begin in 2012,2 and switched the United States to a first-to-file system in 2013. Appeals requiring the Federal Circuit to interpret the AIA are starting to work their way through the system, and the first crop was ripe for decision this past year. These cases presented many difficult questions about how post-grant proceedings should be conducted (for example, is claim construction to be performed under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard?) and the types of issues in post-grant proceedings that the Federal Circuit has jurisdiction to review. These decisions are just the beginning: as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office begins to issue first-to-file patents, the AIA's new provisions on prior art will raise many more disputes in the years to come.' The AIA was not the only source of statutory construction decisions. The Federal Circuit interpreted plenty of other existing statutory requirements, including the scope of the Hatch-Waxman Act's safe harbor provision;' the scope of infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(g) (2012);6 claim interpretation under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f); 7 whether the Patent Act authorizes a laches defense;' the International Trade Commission's authority to address inducement,9 digital communications, 0 and certain domestic industry;" and the Patent Office's application of the patent term adjustment provisions 1. Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), Pub. L. No. 112-29,125 Stat. 284 (2011). 2. See id. § 6, 125 Stat. at 305-13. 3. See id. § 3, 125 Stat. at 285. 4. See generally 35 U.S.C. § 102 (2012), which introduced several new provisions and substantially revised the wording of others from the 1952 Patent Act. 5. See Momenta Pharm., Inc. v. Teva Pharm. USA Inc., 809 F.3d 610, 618-22 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (interpreting the safe harbor provision, 35 U.S.C. § 271 (e) (1)); Shire LLC v. Amneal Pharms., LLC, 802 F.3d 1301, 1309-10 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (same); Classen Immunotherapies, Inc. v. Elan Pharm., Inc., 786 F.3d 892, 894 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (same). 6. Momenta, 809 F.3d at 615-18. 7. Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, 792 F.3d 1339, 1347-49 (Fed. Cir. 2015). 8. SCA Hygiene Prods. Aktiebolag SCA Personal Care,
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