Patent Law And The Supreme Court: Certiorari Petitions Pending (May 2015)

WilmerHale compiles lists of certiorari petitions that raise patent-law issues. This page contains a consolidated list of all recently pending petitions, organized in reverse chronological order by date of certiorari petition.

CardSoft (Assignment for the Ben. of Creditors), LLC v. VeriFone, Inc., No. 14-1160 Question Presented:

Did the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit err in using a de novo standard of review in considering evidence and making new factual findings, instead of using a "clear error" standard of review in reviewing the factual findings underlying the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas's claim construction of the term "virtual machine" as used in U.S. Pats. Nos. 6,934,945 and 7,302,683?

Cert. petition filed 3/23/15.

CAFC Opinion, CAFC Argument

Scientific Plastic Products, Inc. v. Biotage AB, No. 14-1186 Question Presented:

Despite no evidence of a known problem in the prior art, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled below that evidence "implicitly" showing a "potential" problem is sufficient to combine references is an obviousness determination. Never before has any court held that a person of ordinary skill would have been prompted to make a combination based on "an implicit" "potential" problem. In KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2006), this Court reaffirmed that patent "obviousness" depends on whether evidence shows that persons of ordinary skill in the art had a "reason to combine" earlier technologies into the claimed invention, such as to address a "known problem." Since all inventions necessarily had the "potential" to have been made, the KSR standard supplies rigor to prevent nontechnical judges and juries from using hindsight, or using standardless yardsticks tantamount to "the length of the chancellor's foot." A majority of the divided panel in this case rejected the balance and rigor of the KSR test in favor of tautological standard that asks whether a "potential" (not "known") problem existed in the art.

The question presented is:

Whether an "implicit" acknowledgment of a "potential" problem or "concern," which Judge Moore, in dissent, declared "according to all of the evidence on record, never actually existed," is consistent with this Court's anti-hindsight jurisprudence requiring substantial evidence of a "known problem" to provide a reason for combining references for an obviousness determination.

Cert. petition filed 3/19/15.

CAFC Opinion, CAFC Argument

Yufa v. TSI Inc., No. 14-1108 Questions Presented:

Whether the Federal Circuit has erred in affirming the District Court's summary judgment, believing only in the movant's non-evidentiary and unsupported arguments made in favor of the movant, conclusory stating a non-infringement, without applying, discussing or at least mentioning in the Federal Circuit decision of the movant's statement on record made in favor of nonmovant, evidentiary proving the use of the patented technology in the accused products, thereby creating a genuine evidentiary dispute of the admissible triable evidentiary material fact additionally to other admissible triable evidentiary material facts, including electrical schematic diagram, all of which have been clearly specified and supplied by non-movant for Federal Circuit. Whether the Federal Circuit has erred in affirming the District Court's summary judgment, believing only in the movant's non-evidentiary and unsupported conclusory arguments and in the movant's "amended" interrogatory answer under oath, denying the use of the patented technology, instead of believing in the movant's original interrogatory answer under oath, confirming the use of the patented technology, and in the nonmovant's other evidences, as it is strictly enforced by the common laws requiring that the Courts "must believe the nonmoving party's evidence, and must draw all reasonable inferences in the nonmovant's favor." Cert. petition filed 3/9/15.

CAFC Opinion, No CAFC Argument

Internet Machines, LLC v. Cyclone Microsystems, Inc., No. 14-1088 Question Presented:

Section 271(a) of the Patent Act provides that "whoever ... sells any patented invention, within the United States ... infringes the patent." The question presented is whether sales of an infringing product that occur within the United States...