On August 14, 2013, Judge Solis issued an opinion (available here) in StoneEagle Services v. Store Value Payments. Defendants had filed a motion to dismiss (among other things) plaintiff’s claims for patent infringement.
Defendants argued that the patent-in-suit did not claim patent-eligible subject matter. Judge Solis found that the Defendants “cannot show by clear and convincing evidence that the patent in suit bears ineligible subject matter for patentability.”
On August 13, 2013, 87 federal district court Chief Judges, including Chief Judge Fitzwater, wrote to Vice President Biden expressing grave concern about the impact that flat funding of the last several years, followed by sequestration, is having on the Judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional and statutory responsibilities. The Chief Judges detail the effects of the cuts, and indicate that “the cuts have created an unprecedented financial crisis that is adversely affecting all facets of court operations.” The letter also details how the funding cuts have put public safety at risk (for example, by drastically decreasing the number of probation and pretrial services officers who supervise criminal defendants) and jeopardized Defender Services.
The entire letter is well-worth a read.
Judge Lynn, on August 11, 2013, issued her claim construction opinion in Good Technology v. Little Red Wagon Technologies (available here). In the 36 page opinion, Judge Lynn construed disputed terms in the five patents-in-suit.
On August 7, 2013, Judge Lynn issued an Order (available here) in Insuremax v. Shanze Enterprises. The Order contains a good discussion of supplemental jurisdiction, and is worth a read in its entirety. One notable aspect is that Judge Lynn granted the plaintiffs’ motion to strike a number of the defendant’s affirmative defenses which were merely “negative defenses” that negate an element of plaintiffs’ prima facie case, not “affirmative defenses” that offer a justification for the defendant’s actions.
On August 6, 2013, Silver Screen Tele-Reality filed two patent infringement cases in the Northern District of Texas (complaints available here and here). Silver Screen claims that Gabriels Technology and SundaySky, Inc. infringe United States Patent No. 8,353,406, entitled System, Method, and Computer Readable Medium for Creating a Video Clip through their use of video technology.
On August 2, 2013, Securus filed its lawsuit (complaint available here) in the Northern District of Texas. Securus claims that Global Tel*Link infringes U.S. Patent No. 7,899,167, entitled “Centralized call processing,” and U.S. Patent No. 7,860,222, entitled “Systems and methods for acquiring, accessing, and analyzing investigative information,” as well as two additional patents. Securus asserts that Global Tel*Link infringes the patents-in-suit “by making, using, selling, or offering to sell in the United States, without authority, products and services, including its inmate telephone system and inmate telephone services, and other inmate correctional facility related services, including, without limitation, telephone call processing, video visitation and investigative services, including, but not limited to, its Inmate Telephone System (ITS), GTL Lazernet Platform, Inmate Calling Manager (ICMv), Call IQ, and/or GTL Data IQ.”
On July 31, 2013, Eight One Two filed a patent infringement lawsuit (complaint available here) against Purdue Pharma. Eight One Two claims Purdue infringes U.S. Patent Nos. 6,697,812, titled “Method and System for Eliminating Error when Packing or Packaging Sets of Serialized Products or Otherwise Identifiable Products” through the “use of an item level tagging and packaging systems that eliminates errors in the packing and shipment of serialized products.”
On July 30, 2013, BWP Media filed a copyright infringement lawsuit (complaint available here) against SoftLayer Technologies in the Northern District of Texas. BWP provides entertainment-related photojournalism goods and services, and owns the rights “to a multitude of photographs featuring celebrities.” SoftLayer owns and operates a website known as www.softlawyer.com. BWP claims that SoftLayer copied, modified, and displayed BWP’s photograph’s on SoftLayer’s website, thereby violating the copyright laws.
On July 29, 2013, Provident Precious Metals filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit (complaint available here) against Northwest Territorial Mint in the Northern District of Texas.
Provident “seeks declaratory judgment of non-infringement of alleged copyright(s), trademarks and trade dress rights asserted against Plaintiff by Defendant Northwest. Provident further seeks declaratory judgment that any alleged copyright, trademark or trade dress rights asserted by Northwest are invalid and unenforceable.” “Northwest has asserted that Provident is infringing Northwest’s alleged copyright, trademarks and trade dress rights by selling copper in the shape of the common and well-known .45 caliber ACP ammunition. Provident denies that it has infringed any copyrights owned by Northwest regarding metals with intrinsic value, such as platinum, gold, silver and copper, shaped in the form of ammunition. Provident further denies that is has infringed any trademarks or trade dress rights owned by Northwest relating to replica ammunition-shaped metal products, including, but not limited to, .45 caliber ACP ammunition.”
On July 28, 2013, Scentsible, LLC d/b/a Poo~Pourri filed an application for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Great Innovations, Inc. (pleading available here). Scentsible claims that Great Innovations has violated the Lanham Act and committed unfair competition by “slavish[ly] copying . . . Poo~Pourri’s highly distinctive commercial presentation of its line of toilet deodorizing products in an attempt to sell [Great Innovations’] own products.”
