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Category Archives: litigation

Home Isn’t Where the Servers Are: Federal Circuit Holds that the Presence of Google Servers Does Not Establish Venue

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In Re: Google LLC, Appeal No. 2019-126 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 13, 2020)

The Federal Circuit has ordered the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to dismiss or transfer Super Interconnect Techs. LLC v. Google LLC, No. 2:18-CV-00463-JRG for lack of venue, because Google LLC, which contracted with internet service providers (ISPs) within the district to host its servers, had no employee or agent regularly conducting its business there.

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No Do-Overs: Federal Circuit Denies Unsuccessful IPR Petitioner’s Request for a New Hearing in Light of Arthrex

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Ciena Corp. v. Oyster Optics, LLC, Appeal No. 2019-2117 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 28, 2020)

The Federal Circuit has held that a party that petitioned for inter partes review before the Patent Trial Appeal Board and subsequently obtained an unfavorable ruling cannot now invoke Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. to vacate and remand the Board’s decision for a new hearing before a differently constituted panel.

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Federal Circuit Holds That Names and Logos Matter in the Design-Infringement Analysis

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Columbia Sportswear N. Am., Inc. v. Seirus Innovative Accessories, Inc., Appeal No. 2018-1329 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 13, 2019)

Columbia Sportswear is the owner of U.S. Patent D657,093 (“the ‘093 patent”), a design patent directed at the “ornamental design of a heat reflective material.” The claimed design is a wave pattern used in sleeping bags, boots, pants, gloves, and jackets. Columbia sued Seirus Innovative Accessories in the District of Oregon for infringement of the’093 patent and a utility patent. Seirus makes outdoor apparel products lined with its HeatWave fabric, and its design features waves of varying pattern and orientation, interrupted by repeated use of the “Seirus” logo. Continue reading…

It’s All Relative: Federal Circuit Upholds Invalidity of 23andMe’s Genetic Ancestry Testing Patent For Claiming a Rule of Nature

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23andMe, Inc. v. Ancestry.com DNA, LLC et al., Appeal No. 2019-1222 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 9, 2020)

The Federal Circuit has denied a petition for rehearing en banc brought by 23andMe, leaving in place the court’s earlier ruling on October 4, 2019, that the company’s patent, which describes a method for identifying the degree of relationship between two individuals based on their DNA samples, was invalid for claiming a rule of nature.

23andMe’s patent, U.S. Patent No. 8,463,554 (“Finding relatives in a database”), covers a method of comparing two individuals’ recombinable DNA sequence information—rather than the whole genome—in order to determine a relative relationship. According to 23andMe, the ‘554 patent explains that only relatives will share long stretches of genome regions where their recombinable DNA is completely or nearly identical. 23andMe sued Ancestry in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that it was infringing the ‘554 patent with its AncestryDNA kits, which feature services to identify relatives who share parts of their DNA.

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