Case Summaries

Intellectual Property

[02/01] Thorner v. Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC
In a patent infringement action concerning a patent relating to a tactile feedback system for computer video games, the district court's judgment of noninfringement upon stipulation is vacated and the case remanded, where: 1) the district court improperly limited the term "attached to said pad" to mean attachment only to an external surface, and the parties based the stipulation of noninfringement on the district court's erroneous construction of this claim; and 2) the district court erred in its construction of the term "flexible."

[01/27] Krippelz v. Ford Motor Co.
In a patent infringement case involving a vehicle-mounted lamp, the district court's denial of the defendant's motion for judgment as a matter of law on invalidity is reversed, its summary judgment of infringement is vacated, and the case is remanded for entry of judgment of nonliability for the defendant, where the district court committed reversible error in its holdings that: 1) a reasonable jury could find that a competing French patent failed to teach the required "conical beam of light;" and 2) the jury could have reasonably found the French patent to lack a lamp "adjacent to the window."

[01/23] Falana v. Kent State University
In a suit against a university and inventors listed on a patent alleging that the plaintiff was an omitted co-inventor, the district court’s judgment in favor of the plaintiff as to inventorship is affirmed, where: 1) the district court did not err in construing the language of the claims; 2) error in the exclusion of certain exhibits did not result in substantial injustice and was harmless error; 3) the district court did not err in concluding that the plaintiff's contribution of the method used by the team of which he was a part for making the claimed compounds was enough of a contribution to conception to pass the threshold required for joint inventorship; and 4) the district court's exceptional case finding and award of attorney fees were not yet final and not properly before the court of appeals.

[01/20] Dealertrack, Inc. v. Huber
In a patent infringement action involving patents directed to a computer-aided method and system for processing credit applications over electronic networks, the district court's rulings on summary judgment motions are affirmed in part, vacated in part, reversed in part, and the case remanded, where: 1) the district court erred in granting summary judgment of noninfringement based on a construction of "communications medium" that carved out the Internet; 2) the court modified the claim constructions of "communications medium" and "central processing means," requiring it to vacate summary judgment of noninfringement and remand to the district court to determine infringement in the first instance applying the new constructions; 3) the district court legally erred in denying a motion for summary judgment of invalidity of certain claims for indefiniteness; 4) the district court correctly found that certain claims were patent ineligible abstract ideas.

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Corporation & Enterprise Law

[02/03] Lawson v. FMR, LLC
In two separate but related cases under the whistleblower protection provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, alleging unlawful retaliation by employers that are private companies that act under contract as advisers to and managers of mutual funds organized under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the district court's denial of motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim is reversed, as the whistleblower protection afforded by section 806(a) of the Act applies only to the employees of public companies as defined in the Act, and not to an employee of a contractor or subcontractor of a public company reporting suspected violations relating to fraud against shareholders of the public company.

[01/26] The DIRECTV Group, Inc. v. US
In a case involving the calculation and payment of segment closing adjustments associated with a corporation's sale of certain business units that included the transfer of defined benefit pension plans, the decision of the United States Court of Federal Claims granting summary judgment in favor of the corporation is affirmed, where: 1) the Claims Court did not err by calculating segment closing adjustments based on the assets and liabilities of the entire segment, rather than only the assets and liabilities that the corporation retained; and 2) the Claims Court correctly determined that the corporation's segment closing obligations could be satisfied by the cost savings realized by the government in the successor contracts.

[01/24] TIFD III-E, Inc. v. US
In a suit by a taxpayer partner challenging IRS notices of adjustment reallocating a large percentage of the partnership's income for the years 1993 to 1998 to the taxpayer away from two Dutch banks that had purchased an interest in the partnership, and imposing a penalty for underpayment, the district court's judgment in favor of the taxpayer is reversed, where: 1) the banks' interest was not a capital interest for purposes of qualifying them as partners within the meaning of IRC section 704(e)(1); and 2) the taxpayer failed to point to substantial authority supporting its position, so that the government was entitled to impose a penalty on the taxpayer for substantial understatement of income.

[01/20] Huppe v. WPCS International Inc.
In a shareholder derivative action seeking disgorgement of short-swing profits realized by two limited partnerships that were beneficial owners of more than 10 percent of the shares of the issuer, the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff is affirmed, where: 1) the stock purchases were not exempt from Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or SEC Rule 16b-3(d) even though they were made at the issuer's request and with the board’s approval; and 2) under the definition of "person" in Section 16(b) and basic principles of agency law, the limited partnerships were beneficial owners for the purposes of determining ten percent holder status under Section 16(b), notwithstanding their delegation of voting and investment control over their securities portfolios to their general partners' agents.

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Immigration Law

[02/03] Diaz Ruano v. Holder
On petition for review of a BIA decision that affirmed the decision of an immigration judge denying the petitioner's application for withholding of removal and protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) based on claims that he would be subjected to persecution on account of his membership in the social groups of young males targeted by the criminal gangs in Guatemala for recruitment or because of opposition to gangs, and in the group of persons of perceived wealth returning from the United States, the petition is denied, where substantial evidence supported the determinations that: 1) the petitioner failed to show that it was more likely than not that, if removed to Guatemala, he would suffer persecution on account of his membership in a socially visible, sufficiently particular social group; and 2) the petitioner failed to establish that it was more likely than not that he would be subject to torture upon his return to Guatemala.

[02/02] US v. Rivera-Santana
In a sentencing challenge after the appellant was convicted of illegal reentry into the United States after being removed for a conviction of an aggravated felony, the sentencing court's judgment order is affirmed, where: 1) two upward departures in the advisory Sentencing Guidelines range, augmented by an upward variance of 90 months therefrom, were not procedurally unreasonable; and 2) the resulting sentence, which was the statutory maximum, was not substantively unreasonable.

[02/01] US v. Noriega-Perez
In a prosecution of a property owner stemming from his renting houses he owned near the United States-Mexico border to an alien smuggling organization knowing that they would be used as load houses to conceal and later transfer recently arrived aliens, the convictions are affirmed, where: 1) the strong circumstantial evidence presented at trial sufficed for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that non-testifying material witnesses were illegal aliens; 2) a reasonable jury could find sufficient specific evidence linking the defendant to intentionally aiding the cross-border transportation of the named material witnesses before they were dropped off in the United States.

[02/01] Phan v. Holder
In a case in which USCIS denied an application for naturalization on the grounds that the applicant could not show good moral character because he was convicted of an aggravated felony, the district court's grant of summary judgment is affirmed, where: 1) on its face, the appellant's conviction satisfied the statutory requirements for a "conviction" of an aggravated felony; 2) although a court set aside the conviction, it acted pursuant to rehabilitative goals, which do not control the use of the conviction in the immigration context.

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