The Federal Circuit held that refurbishing single-use cameras originally sold in the United States is permissible repair, not patent infringement, because patent rights are exhausted by the first authorized U.S. sale.
The Federal Circuit vacated summary judgment of non-infringement, holding that “point-of-sale location” in an e-commerce patent should not be limited to a traditional physical retail store and could include a consumer’s home when used as the end-point for electronic content deliver
The Federal Circuit held that the on-sale bar under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is triggered only by a communication that rises to the level of a commercial offer for sale under the Uniform Commercial Code, not by mere negotiations or demonstrations.
The Federal Circuit vacated summary judgment of non-infringement, holding that the district court improperly imported a structural limitation (a “ledge”) from the patent drawings into a broader claim term (“angular medial surface”), and clarified when a patentee’s pre-s
The Federal Circuit held that a key Eli Lilly patent covering the method of using fluoxetine (Prozac) was invalid for obviousness-type double patenting, opening the door for generic competition with the world’s best-selling antidepressant years ahead of schedule.
The Federal Circuit held that process patent infringement under § 271(g) requires the patent to be issued at the time the accused process is performed; pre-issuance use cannot infringe.
The Supreme Court held that when a product feature was the subject of a utility patent, that prior art disclosure is strong evidence the feature is functional and therefore unprotectable as trade dress under the Lanham Act.
The Federal Circuit reversed summary judgment, holding that Intel’s cross-license from National Semiconductor did not extend to Intergraph’s Clipper processor patents, because those patents were directly assigned from Fairchild to Intergraph and never passed through National Semiconducto
The Federal Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction against Barnes & Noble’s one-click shopping feature, holding that Barnes & Noble raised substantial questions about the validity of Amazon’s one-click patent that precluded injunctive relief at the preliminary stage.
The Federal Circuit held that where a patent specification consistently and clearly defines the invention in terms of a specific structure, the claims are limited to that structure even if the claim language is broader.