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Fox Group, Inc. v. Cree, Inc.
By Dorothy Du – Edited by Suzanne Van Arsdale

Fox Group, Inc. v. Cree, Inc., No. 2011-1576 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 28, 2012)
Slip Opinion

Photo By: Intel Free Press – CC BY 2.0

The Federal Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the Eastern District of Virginia, which had granted defendant Cree’s motion for summary judgment on the invalidity of Fox Group’s (“Fox”) entire patent on low defect single crystal silicon carbide.

The Federal Circuit held that because Cree had proved by clear and convincing evidence that it was the prior inventor of the patent and Fox had failed to produce sufficient evidence to raise a triable issue on whether Cree abandoned, suppressed, or concealed the invention, claims 1 and 19 of U.S. Patent No. 6,562,130 (“’130 patent”) were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 102(g)(2). However, because there was no justiciable case or controversy to support Cree’s counterclaim on the invalidity of the rest of Fox’s patent, the court vacated the district court with respect to that portion of its holding.

Patently-O presents the background and key holdings of the case. Photonics Patent Blog suspects that the case would have come out the same way under the AIA’s “first to file” rule, which kicks in on March 16, 2013.

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Cellco P’ship v. FCC
By Kathleen McGuinness – Edited by Charlie Stiernberg

Cellco P’ship v. FCC, No. 11-1135, 2012 WL 6013416 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 4, 2012)
Slip Opinion (hosted by Public Knowledge)

Photo By: Milica Sekulic – CC BY 2.0

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a facial challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) new rule requiring “providers of commercial mobile-data services to offer data roaming agreements to other such providers on commercially reasonable terms.”  Cellco P’ship v. FCC, No. 11-1135, slip op. at 8.Noting the differences between the existing voice roaming requirement and the new data rule, the court held that the FCC had statutory authority to regulate data roaming, and that the flexibility of the new requirement does not amount to the imposition of common carrier requirements. However, the court left open the possibility for future as-applied challenges if the policy becomes a de facto common carrier rule.

Ars Technica provides a brief discussion of the case. Public Knowledge discusses the court’s reasoning and the implications for future litigation over the FCC’s Open Internet rules. Bloomberg lists many of the affected carriers.

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By Kathleen McGuinness

Congress Passes Symbolic Resolution: “No UN Control of the Internet”

Responding to the UN’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (“WCIT-12”), Congress passed a symbolic resolution on Wednesday opposing any increased UN authority over the Internet. Although many participating countries would like to reduce the United States’ control over the Internet, Ars Technica reports, the WCIT-12 has no power over individual state legal regimes. Wired describes some controversial policy proposals that would subject the Internet to the same legal regime as that covering telephone networks, but concludes that they are unlikely to have any practical effect.

Supreme Court Will Hear Case on the Legality of Pay-for-Delay Practices

On Friday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in FTC v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 12-416, 2012 WL 4758105 (U.S. Dec. 7, 2012). The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in the case is hosted by Bloomberg Law. This case will resolve a circuit split discussed by Thomson Reuters on the question of whether the common pharmaceutical industry practice of “reverse payment settlements” or “pay-for-delay”—paying a generic competitor to drop a patent challenge—constitutes anticompetitive behavior. Patent Docs describes the case in more detail.

Preliminary PTO Finding Invalidates Key Apple Multitouch Patent

The PTO issued a first office action on December 3 invalidating an important Apple multitouch patent, Ars Technica reports. The patent concerns iOS’s ability to distinguish between different types of user behavior, such as scrolling, panning, and zooming. While this finding is only preliminary, the fact that all twenty of Apple’s claims were rejected indicates that reversing the finding may be difficult. FOSS Patents discusses the matter in more detail.

United States v. Wahchumwah
By Pio Szamel – Edited by Geng Chen

United States v. Wahchumwah, No. 11-30101 (9th Cir. Nov. 27, 2012)
Slip opinion (hosted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation)

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a ruling by the Eastern District of Washington which held that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s use of a concealed audiovisual recording device on the person of an undercover agent to record inside a defendant’s home without a warrant did not violate the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. In inviting the undercover agent into his home, the defendant “forfeited his expectation of privacy as to those areas that were knowingly expose[d] to” the undercover agent. Wahchumwah, No. 11-30101 at 8. Since the recording device “reveal[ed] no more than what was already visible to the agent,” it implicated no additional privacy concerns. Id.

FindLaw provides an overview of the case. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”), which had filed an amicus brief in support of Wahchumwah, criticizes the decision for opening the door to government surveillance and recording of “every intimate detail” of a person’s home.

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