Fresh From the Bench: Latest Federal Circuit Court Cases
CASE OF THE WEEK
Power Integrations, Inc. v. Fairchild Semiconductor Int’l, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2016-2691, 2017-1875 (Fed. Cir. July 3, 2018)
The Court affirmed a jury verdict of patent infringement and vacated a $140 million damages award. At issue were two patents owned by Power Integrations related to power supply controller chips, which are integrated circuits used in power supplies such as mobile phone chargers. Power Integrations asserted infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,212,079, covering a “switching regulator” that directs the circuit’s transistor to turn on and off to supply the desired amount of power, and 6,538,908, covering a “power supply controller” that performs a variety of power regulation functions. At trial, the jury found that defendant-appellant Fairchild Semiconductor literally infringed the ’079 patent and infringed the ’908 patent under the doctrine of equivalents. The jury awarded $139.8 million in reasonable royalty damages, applying the entire market value rule. The district court denied Fairchild’s motions for judgment as a matter of law, and Fairchild appealed.
ALSO THIS WEEK
Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2018-1180, -1181 (Fed. Cir. July 2, 2018)
In what appears to be a final resolution on the issue of whether the PTAB can institute an inter partes review on only certain grounds following the Supreme Court’s decision in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, 138 S. Ct. 1348 (2018), the Federal Circuit held that IPRs must be instituted on all grounds asserted in the petition or not at all. In these IPRs, following a final written decision on some grounds—but not others—Adidas moved to remand the appeal to the PTAB for further consideration of the non-instituted grounds. The Federal Circuit granted the motion in a precedential order, and held that “[e]qual treatment of claims and grounds for institution purposes has pervasive support in SAS.”
For more on the SAS decision, see our write-up here.
Opinion can be found here.
Written by: Scott D. Eads and Nika F. Aldrich, Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt
Contributor: Jason Wrubleski