Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Marchon Eyewear, Inc., No. 2011–1147 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 14, 2012) (Chief Judge Rader, and Circuit Judges Bryson and Reyna) There’s a common stereotype that someone with glasses is less inclined to fight. You wouldn’t know it from this case. These eyewear companies have been going at it for over a decade! […]
Category: Federal Circuit Spotlight
XCEED Doesn’t Succeed
In this trademark case, the Federal Circuit considered the impact of the “reasonable manner” doctrine—the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) infringement analysis tool it rejected in last year’s Citigroup decision. This time the Federal Circuit decided that the TTAB got the infringement issue right, even though it used this doctrine in its analysis. In […]
It’s Time for an Intervention
Marine Polymer Technologies, Inc. v. Hemcon, Inc. , No. 2010–1548 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 15, 2012) (en banc) We first wrote about this case last year. The issue is a pretty narrow one: if a patent owner doesn’t have to literally amend its claims during a reexamination, can that still create intervening rights? That is, can argument alone […]
It’s Not Always Good to Be the King
Zoltek Corp. v. United States, No. 2009–5135 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 14, 2012) (Chief Judge Rader and Judges Plager and Gajarsa; court sat en banc with respect to Part I-B) When can you sue the U.S. government for patent infringement? In general, the federal government has sovereign immunity (that is, immunity by right of being the […]
Tricky Trademarks and the Chamber of Commerce
After 5 years of fighting for trademark registration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (COC) might feel like it faced a basilisk, but it was actually a Federal Circuit panel. (The Federal Circuit’s opinion came out 5 years to the day after the COC filed its application.) Unfortunately, the COC didn’t have the Sword of Gryffindor […]
Claim Construction Lessons from Your Kitchen
In this claim construction analysis, the Federal Circuit panel disagreed about what the holes were in Advanced Fiber Technologies’ (AFT) patents—literally. Advanced Fiber Technologies (AFT) Trust v. J&L Fiber Services, Inc., No. 2011-1243 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 3, 2012) (Judges Lourie, Prost, and Dyk) This patent infringement case involves AFL’s patent for screening tools in the […]