Supreme Court Overrules Life Techs v. Promega

In Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corp., No. 14–1538 (February 22, 2017), the Supreme Court overruled the Federal Circuit’s finding of induced infringement. Writing for a majority of the court, Justice Sotomayor determined that supplying a single component of a multi-component invention from the United States cannot be an infringing act under 35 U.S.C. §271(f)(1).

Promega’s patent had claimed a process for examining polymorphism in DNA samples. A subsidiary of Life Techs manufactured, overseas, genetic testing kits that included one component (Taq polymerase) that was manufactured by Life Technologies (“Life Techs”) in the US. The statute in question, 35 U.S.C. §271(f)(1), establishes infringement liability if a “substantial portion” of a claimed invention’s components are manufactured within the US and provided elsewhere. The Federal Circuit ascribed a qualitative meaning to the term, establishing that one single component could be a “substantial portion” if it was vital enough to the invention.

The Supreme Court found that, in the context of the statute, the term “substantial portion” is intended to be quantitative, rather than qualitative. The “qualitative” interpretation is intended to be covered by other law. As such, a single component, no matter how vital, can never be a “substantial portion” and thus cannot give rise to infringement liability under 35 U.S.C. §271(f)(1).

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Federal Circuit Narrows CBM Eligibility

In Secure Axcess, LLC v. PNC Bank Nat’l Assoc., No. 16-1353 (Fed. Cir. February 21, 2017), the Federal Circuit overturned a covered business method patent review decision of the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), on the basis that the patent fell outside of the statutory definition for a CBM patent.

Secure Axcess (“Secure”) had a patent for a computer security system and for a method for authenticating a web page. The PTAB found that the patent was directed to solving problems that might arise from customers of a financial institution attempting to access the web site of the financial institution, and determined that the patent therefore qualified as a CBM patent, because it was “incidental” to a financial activity.

The Federal Circuit found that, under section 18 of the America Invents Act, CBM review is only available for patents that claim “a method… for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service [emphasis added].” It is not sufficient that a claim be “incidental” to financial activity; instead, it must actually have some financial activity element.

Judge Lourie wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that while the term “financial” was not found within the claims, the exemplary embodiments described in the patent deal exclusively with online banking, and the patent has been asserted exclusively against financial institutions. Therefore, although the claims do not recite the intended use of the invention, she contended that they should not have to do so for the PTAB to find that the claims recite an invention “used in the practice of a financial product.”

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Federal Circuit Declines to Interpret Claims In Light of Limiting Terms in Provisional

In MPHJ Techn. Invs., LLC v. Ricoh Ams. Corp., No. 16-1243 (Fed. Cir., February 3, 2017), the Federal Circuit upheld an inter partes review decision of the PTAB invalidating the claims of a patent. The patent in question, owned by MPHJ, claimed a computer data management system and method for enabling virtual copying by scanning a document and emailing the scanned copy.

The USPTO construed the claims of the patent as requiring that scanning and emailing of a document be done either in separate steps or in one step. MPHJ argued that several statements included in the provisional application had “expressly limited the scope of the invention” to a one-step copying and sending process. However, these statements had been deleted from the non-provisional patent application.

The Federal Circuit determined that the deletion of the limiting statements in the provisional application was significant. Without them, the patent contained no suggestion of an intent to limit the claims expressly to a one-step operation. The court found that a skilled artisan would find the deletion significant, and would conclude that the inventor considered the one-step operation to be optional rather than obligatory.

Judge O’Malley wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that, because the patent made repeated references to a one-step operation, and incorporated the entire provisional application by reference in the specification, the patentee did the opposite of deleting the limiting statements, and the claims should be interpreted accordingly.