News

Case Summaries

Intellectual Property

[12/08] Inventor Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath and Beyond, Inc.
Affirming district court opinions holding patents invalid and granting attorney fees to Bed Bath and Beyond in a case involving the use of a method of purchasing goods at a local point-of-sale system from a remote seller.

[12/07] Arctic Cat, Inc. v. Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc.
Affirming the district court’s denial of judgment as a matter of law as to obviousness in the case of a patent for a thrust steering system for personal watercraft as well as the jury’s royalty rate and finding of willfulness, the decision to award treble damages and ongoing royalties, but vacating the denial of judgment as a matter of law as to the marking of patented products and remanding for further consideration as to that issue.

[12/05] CFRD Research, Inc. v. Matal
Affirming two decisions and reversing the finding of obviousness in a third in related patent actions associated with user-directed transfers of ongoing software based sessions from one device to another.

[11/21] Presidio Components, Inc. v. American Technical Ceramics Corp.
Affirming the district court’s finding of definiteness, the grant of absolute intervening rights, and the denial of enhanced damages, but reversing the award of lost profits in a patent infringement case relating to multi-layer capacitors because the plaintiff failed to show the absence of an acceptable, non-infringing, substitute, limiting damages to a reasonable royalty, vacating the permanent injunction and remanding to determine whether the plaintiff has established irreparable injury.

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Dispute Resolution & Arbitration

[12/08] Howeth v. Coffelt
Dismissing an appeal in a case where neighbors who shared a driveway couldn’t peacefully enjoy their easement and sued each other, resulting in a settlement agreement that stipulated to the entry of a judgment to resolve the lawsuit and purporting to allow the parties to collect a fine for refusal to comply because the court’s determination that it lacked jurisdiction to enforce the fine in a filing made on the original action because a consent judgment, such as occurs pursuant to a settlement agreement, is not appealable.

[11/30] Yang v. Dongwan Industries
Affirming the district court’s order denying a motion to compel arbitration in a maritime action arising from the death of a seaman in the sinking of a fishing vessel because the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards does not allow non-signatories or non-parties to compel arbitration or under the Federal Arbitration Act, which expressly exempts contracts of employment of seamen.

[11/30] State Farm General Insurance Company v. Watts Regulator Co.
Affirming the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to compel arbitration in a case where the parties had signed an arbitration agreement with a third party many years prior that hadn’t included product liability claims at the time, but was amended to include such suits in the intervening period because there was no vested right to arbitration where the parties agreed to the contractual terms and rules determined by a third party.

[11/29] Sayta v. Chu
Vacating a trial court order seeking liquidated damages and the enforcement of a settlement agreement entered into by parties to a prior case involving efforts to terminate the plaintiff’s tenancy because the parties had failed to request, at the termination of the initial case, that the trial court retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement and did not seek to set aside the dismissals, so the court lacked jurisdiction to rule on the motion to enforce.

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