New England IP Blog

Covering intellectual property developments in New England, and other developments that impact New England companies.

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Scope of Brain Imaging Patent Dispute Comes into Focus

By James Anderson on Posted in Health Care, Massachusetts, Procedure/Jurisdiction
Judge Stearns recently clarified the scope of an almost five-year-old multi-district patent dispute in the District of Massachusetts.  Since early 2013, Judge Stearns has presided over NeuroGrafix’ allegations of patent infringement after ten actions encompassing dozens of defendants were consolidated in the District of Massachusetts.  In the suit relevant to Judge Stearns’ most recent order, … Continue Reading

LED Dispute Blazes Through Summary Judgment

By Gourdin Sirles on Posted in Direct Infringement, Electronics, Massachusetts, Summary Judgment
A recent decision from Judge Stearns sheds new light on a dispute between Lexington Luminance (“Lexington”) and Google over LED technology. The dispute began in November, 2012, when Lexington accused Google of infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,936,851 (the “’851 Patent”), entitled “Semiconductor Light-Emitting Device and Method for Manufacturing Same.” In particular, Lexington accused the LEDs … Continue Reading

Massachusetts Jury Verdict Stands After Court Ruling on Laches

By Patrick Niedermeier on Posted in Health Care, Laches, Massachusetts, Medical Devices
A Massachusetts court recently denied defendant Kaz’s motions for judgment on the defenses of laches and equitable estoppel, letting stand an earlier jury verdict that found Kaz had infringed Exergen’s patents for temporal thermometers.  As we previously reported, the verdict awarded the plaintiff almost $15 million in damages.… Continue Reading

Plaintiff Secures Sweeping Jury Verdict in Hotly-Contested Patent Fight

By Patrick Niedermeier on Posted in Contributory Infringement, Direct Infringement, Enablement, Health Care, Indefiniteness, Inducement, Massachusetts, Medical Devices, Obviousness, Prior Art
In a long-running patent fight involving two medical device manufacturers, a Massachusetts jury determined last week that the defendant Kaz had infringed two of plaintiff Exergen’s patents relating to temporal thermometers, and that the patents are not invalid. The jury also awarded Exergen nearly $15 million in damages.… Continue Reading

Defendant’s Argument to Exclude Damages Theory Heads in the Wrong Direction

By Patrick Niedermeier on Posted in Damages, Health Care, Massachusetts, Medical Devices, Subject Matter Eligibility, Validity
Although courts and commentators have turned up the heat on the entire market value rule (EMVR) in recent years, it can be a useful tool for a patentee to obtain significant damages where the evidence shows that the patented feature is the basis of consumer demand for the accused product. Thus, defendants often try to … Continue Reading

Massachusetts Court Takes the Temperature of Defendant’s Inequitable Conduct Claim on Summary Judgment

By Laura Stafford on Posted in Biotechnology, Copyright, Defenses, Electronics, Health Care, Invalidity, Massachusetts, Medical Devices, Validity
In a recent decision out of the District of Massachusetts, Judge Stearns assessed Kaz’s inequitable conduct defense on summary judgment – and found it to come up short by a degree. The opinion is an important reminder that to make out an inequitable conduct defense, a litigant must make a strong showing as to both … Continue Reading

Plaintiff Avoids Headache of Having Its Thermometer Patent Invalidated at Summary Judgment

By Patrick Niedermeier on Posted in Enablement, Health Care, Infringement, Infringement/Willfulness, Massachusetts, Medical Devices, Obviousness, Prior Art, Procedure/Jurisdiction, Summary Judgment, Validity, Willfulness
In a recent District of Massachusetts case, a defendant attempted to use the crucible of summary judgment to invalidate the plaintiff’s body temperature detection patents. But, as shown in the Court’s ruling, sometimes that strategy does not produce the desired results.… Continue Reading

EveryScape’s Patents Hit Their Vanishing Point

By Laura Stafford on Posted in Anticipation, Massachusetts, Obviousness, Software, Validity
Last week, a federal jury in Massachusetts delivered a verdict in favor of patent-defendant Adobe Systems, invalidating all asserted claims of EveryScape’s two asserted patents.  Earlier in the litigation, the court found at summary judgment that a tool in the Vanishing Point filter of Adobe’s popular Photoshop software directly infringed EveryScape’s patents.  So at trial, Adobe … Continue Reading

In Thermometer Case, Reliance on Opinion of Counsel May Waive Privilege – But Only to a Certain Degree

By Nathan Harris on Posted in Infringement/Willfulness, Massachusetts, Medical Devices, Opinions of Counsel, Willfulness
How do you defend yourself against charges of willful patent infringement? Companies finding themselves facing such an allegation often use the defense that they relied on a pre-lawsuit opinion from a lawyer that the company does not infringe valid patents. Such an opinion, if it exists, can be a strong piece of defensive evidence, because … Continue Reading

Judicial Efficiency: Judges Young and Stearns Agree to Single Claim Construction Hearing

By John Kitchura on Posted in Electronics, Massachusetts, Procedure/Jurisdiction
Presiding over separate but related patent infringement suits against tech-industry giants can be neither straightforward nor efficient. The limits of judicial efficiency are further exacerbated when lawsuits involving the same patents are assigned to two or more judges, as each judge must separately construe the terms of the patents. Addressing this problem, Judges Young and … Continue Reading
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