Inequitable conduct

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In United States patent law, inequitable conduct is a breach of the applicant's duty of candor and good faith during patent prosecution or similar proceedings by misrepresenting or omitting material information with the specific intent to deceive the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A claim of inequitable conduct is a defense to allegations of patent infringement. Even in an instance when a valid patent suffers infringement, a court ruling on an allegation of infringement may exercise its power of equitable discretion not to enforce the patent if the patentee (the patent owner) has engaged in inequitable conduct.

Contents

Duty of candor

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Rule 56 explains that patents are "affected with a public interest. The public interest is best served, and the most effective patent examination occurs when, at the time an application is being examined, the Office is aware of and evaluates the teachings of all information material to patentability." Accordingly, each individual person "associated with the filing and prosecution of a patent application has a duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the Office, which includes a duty to disclose to the Office all information known to that individual to be material to patentability." [1]

Specifics

Inequitable conduct occurs when a patent applicant misrepresents or omits material information with the specific intent to deceive the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In other words, the elements of inequitable conduct are materiality and deceptive intent. Deceptive intent may be inferred from indirect or circumstantial evidence but not from materiality.

Information is material if "the PTO would not have allowed a claim had it been aware of the undisclosed prior art" or if "affirmative egregious misconduct" has happened. See Therasense, Inc. v. Becton. [2] In response to Therasense, the USPTO rewrote its definition of materiality to say that information is material if

(1) It establishes, by itself or in combination with other information, a prima facie case of unpatentability of a claim; or
(2) It refutes, or is inconsistent with, a position the applicant takes in:
(i) Opposing an argument of unpatentability relied on by the Office, or
(ii) Asserting an argument of patentability. [1]

The misrepresentation or omission can include:

(a) failure to submit material prior art known by the applicant;
(b) failure to explain references in a foreign language or submit pre-existing full or partial translations of the references;
(c) misstatements of fact, including misstatements in affidavits concerning patentability; and
(d) mis-description of inventorship (authorship).

The party asking the court to decline to enforce the patent, usually the alleged infringer, bears the burden of proving inequitable conduct to the court. The moving party must show by clear and convincing evidence that the patentee intentionally withheld or misrepresented information, and that the information was material. [1] Proven inequitable conduct in any claim can expose the entire patent to unenforceability.

On appeal, a finding of inequitable conduct is reviewed under the standard of abuse of discretion. [3]

History

The unclean hands cases of Keystone Driller v. General Excavator, Hazel-Atlas v. Hartford, and Precision v. Automotive formed the basis for the doctrine of inequitable conduct that developed and evolved over time. [2]

Keystone case

In the 1933 Keystone case, the patentee manufactured and suppressed evidence in a patent application and its subsequent defense in two different infringement actions: the patentee paid the prior art user to perjure himself by signing a false affidavit that his use was an abandoned experiment, and bought the prior art user's agreement to keep secret the prior use details and to suppress that evidence. Unsurprisingly, the patentee also did not disclose those facts to the PTO or to co-litigants in the infringement actions. The defendants in the second action discovered and presented evidence of the malfeasance, and while the trial court refused dismissal on that ground, on appeal the Sixth Circuit reversed the trial court and remanded for dismissal, and the Supreme Court affirmed. [4]

Hazel-Atlas case

In the 1944 Hazel-Atlas case, a patentee's attorneys also manufactured and suppressed evidence in support of a patent application by hiring an expert to publish an article in a trade journal under his own name praising the invention as a remarkable advance in the art. After the patent was approved and issued on that basis, the patentee brought an infringement action against Hazel-Atlas but was unsuccessful in the trial court, so the patentee then appealed the matter to the Third Circuit where the patentee introduced the procured trade journal article. That appellate court reversed the trial court and ruled for the patentee, after which Hazel-Atlas settled on the infringement claim, and the patentee then paid the expert more money. The patentee's lies were discovered, however, in US v. Hartford-Empire, [5] whereupon Hazel-Atlas petitioned the Third Circuit to reconsider its prior decision, and although it refused, the Supreme Court didn't and reversed, vacating the appellate court's decision and the judgment against Hazel-Atlas, and reinstating the trial court's original judgment dismissing the patentee's case. [6]

Precision case

In the 1945 Precision case, the patentee suppressed evidence of perjury before the PTO and attempted to enforce the perjury-tainted patent. In the application to the PTO the patentee claimed false dates of conception, disclosure, drawing, description, and reduction to practice, and then testified to the veracity of the same lies in an interference proceeding. The competing patentee discovered the truth, but procured rights to the patent by private settlement, complicit in the scheme, and then sought to enforce the patent against others. In a later enforcement action, a trial court learned of the facts and ruled against the patentee based on the patentee having unclean hands, but the Seventh Circuit appellate court reversed, and on further appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, reinstating the trial court's decision. [7]

Landmark court cases

McKesson case

In the 2007 case McKesson v. Bridge Medical, [8] the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals found inequitable conduct because a patent attorney failed to provide to patent examiners information from an office action in a related case. McKesson is a cautionary tale for patent applicants: be overly inclusive with patent submissions to ensure no omission will jeopardize a patent. [9]

Exergen case

However, a subsequent CAFC decision seems to directly contradict the standard used in McKesson. In the 2009 case Exergen Corp. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and S.A.A.T. Systems, [10] SAAT attempted to defend with a claim of inequitable conduct, alleging Exergen was aware of two earlier patents that it did not cite to the examiner during prosecution. The district court denied SAAT's motion for inequitable conduct as a defense, however, holding that SAAT's allegations were not specific enough to meet the particularity requirement of FRCP 9(b). The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this ruling, and ruled that such allegations must specify who engaged in inequitable conduct, what precisely that person knowingly withheld or misstated to the PTO, and how the omission or misstatement affected the patentability of individual claims. The court opined that inequitable conduct is not a "magic incantation to be asserted against every patentee" by a "mere showing that art or information having some degree of materiality was not disclosed". [9]

Therasense case

In a further development, in the 2011 case of Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson and Co, [2] the same Federal Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc limited this defense to (a) occasions when patent-holders' acts are related directly to the patent, and (b) when it can be proved that patent holders engaged in deceitful intent. [11] One commentator remarked that this change has led to a "virtual alignment of inequitable conduct and Walker Process   fraud that was accomplished by Therasense." [12] Under the new standard, the Court of Appeals found no inequitable conduct in Powell v. Home Depot USA, Inc. . [13] [14]

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<i>Mallinckrodt, Inc. v. Medipart, Inc.</i>

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TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp. is a case stretching from 2004 to 2011, which took place in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. TiVo Inc. sued EchoStar Corp. claiming patent infringement of a DVR technology. The issues addressed during litigation included patent infringement, wording of injunctions, infringing product redesign, contempt of court orders, and contempt sanctions. Ultimately, the court held that EchoStar Corp. had indeed infringed TiVo Inc's patent and was in contempt of court for noncompliance of an injunction. The parties reached a settlement wherein EchoStar Corp. paid TiVo Inc. a licensing fee. Further, the court replaced the established contempt test with a single step test. The simplified test makes it more difficult for patent holders to prove contempt as a result of repeat infringement.

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Blonder-Tongue Labs., Inc. v. University of Ill. Foundation, 402 U.S. 313 (1971), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that a final judgment in an infringement suit against a first defendant that a patent is invalid bars the patentee from relitigating the same patent against other defendants. In so ruling, the Supreme Court overruled its 1936 decision in Triplett v. Lowell, which had required mutuality of estoppel to bar such preclusion, and held that the better view was to prevent relitigating if the plaintiff had had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in question.

Peter v. NantKwest Inc., 589 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2019 term.

United States v. Throckmorton is an 1878 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on civil procedure, specifically res judicata, in cases heard at equity. A unanimous Court affirmed an appeal of a decision by the District Court for California upholding a Mexican-era land claim, holding that collateral estoppel bars untimely motions to set aside the verdict where the purportedly fraudulent evidence has already been considered and a decision reached. In the opinion it distinguished between that kind of fraud, which it called intrinsic, and extrinsic fraud, in which deceptive actions exterior to the proceeding prevented a party, or potential party, to the action from becoming aware of the possibility they could vindicate their rights in court.

References

  1. 1 2 3 37 CFR § 1.56 (1977, revised 2012), commonly referred to as Rule 56.
  2. 1 2 3 Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson and Co., 649 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (en banc).
  3. ↑ GS Cleantech Corp. v. Adkins Energy LLC, 951 F.3d 1310, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
  4. ↑ Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 US 240 at 243-47, 54 S.Ct. 146, 1933.
  5. ↑ United States v. Hartford-Empire Co., 46 F.Supp. 541 (N.D.Ohio 1942).
  6. ↑ Hazel-Atlas Co. v. Hartford Co., 322 U.S. 238 at 240 at 243-251, 64 S.Ct. 997, 1944.
  7. ↑ Precision Co. v. Automotive Co., 324 U.S. 806 at 807-20, 65 S.Ct. 993, 1945.
  8. ↑ "McKesson Info. Sols., Inc. v. Bridge Med., Inc., 487 F.3d 897, 902 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
  9. 1 2 Stickevers, John, Vague Allegations No Longer Acceptable When Asserting Inequitable Conduct Defense, Sunstein IP Update, 2009-08.
  10. ↑ Exergen Corp. v. Wal-Mart Stores, 575 F. 3d 1312, Ct. App. (Fed. Cir.) Aug. 2009. Nos. 2006-1491, 2007-1180.
  11. ↑ Zebley, Julia, Federal appeals court restricts inequitable conduct defense for patent law, Jurist, 2011-05-26.
  12. ↑ Gideon Mark and T. Leigh Anenson, Inequitable Conduct And Walker Process Claims After Therasense And The America Invents Act, 16 U. Pa. J. Bus. Law 361, 402 (2014).
  13. ↑ Powell v. Home Depot USA, Inc. , 663F.3d1221 ( Fed. Cir. 2011).
  14. ↑ "Post-Therasense: Inequitable Conduct Really Is a Higher Standard". McDermott Will & Emery. 2011-12-05. Retrieved 2012-09-03.

See also

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