Law Commons^™

Patent Injunctions On Appeal: An Empirical Study Of The Federal Circuit's Application Of Ebay, Christopher B. Seaman, Ryan T. Holte

Scholarly Articles

More than ten years after the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in eBay v. MercExchange, the availability of injunctive relief in patent cases remains hotly contested. For example, in a recent decision in the long-running litigation between Apple and Samsung, members of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit divided sharply on whether an injunction was warranted to prevent Samsung from continuing to infringe several smartphone features patented by Apple. To date, however, nearly all empirical scholarship regarding eBay has focused on trial court decisions, rather than the Federal Circuit.

This Article represents the first …

The Patently Unexceptional Venue Statute, Megan M. La Belle, Paul R. Gugliuzza

Scholarly Articles

Legal doctrines developed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are often derided as “exceptionalist,” particularly on issues of procedure. The court’s interpretation of the venue statute for patent infringement suits seems, at first glance, to fit that mold. According to the Federal Circuit, the statute places few constraints on the plaintiff’s choice of forum when suing corporate defendants. This permissive venue rule has lead critics to suggest that the court is, once again, outside the mainstream. The Supreme Court’s recent grant of certiorari in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods would seem to indicate that those critics …

Privilege For Patent Agents, Megan M. La Belle

Scholarly Articles

Patent agents, in many ways, are unique operators in our legal system. They are not attorneys; yet, they are authorized by Congress to practice law before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). This unusual status raises a host of questions, including whether communications with patent agents should be privileged and, therefore, shielded from discovery. This question has become increasingly important in recent years with the rise of litigation at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)--an administrative tribunal created in 2011 by the America Invents Act (AIA)--where parties can be represented either by a patent attorney or a …