Justia Professional Malpractice & Ethics Opinion Summaries

Centripetal Networks LLC owns a patent related to rule-based network threat detection for encrypted communications. In November 2021, Palo Alto Networks petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of certain claims of Centripetal’s patent. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted the IPR with a panel of three administrative patent judges (APJs). Subsequently, Cisco Systems and Keysight Technologies filed similar petitions and sought to join the proceedings. During the process, Centripetal discovered that one APJ, McNamara, owned Cisco stock and moved for the recusal of the panel and vacatur of the institution decision, arguing a conflict of interest. After rehearing requests and additional disclosures, APJ McNamara and another APJ withdrew from the panel, but the Board denied Centripetal’s recusal motion as untimely and found no violation of ethics rules or due process.The PTAB, in its final written decision, held claims 1, 24, and 25 of Centripetal’s patent unpatentable as obvious. Centripetal appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, challenging both the merits of the Board’s obviousness determination and the handling of the recusal issue. The Federal Circuit reviewed the Board’s recusal analysis for abuse of discretion and its legal conclusions de novo, finding that Centripetal’s recusal motion was untimely and that the APJ’s stock ownership did not violate applicable ethics regulations. The court also determined that Centripetal’s due process rights were not infringed and that the Board’s actions did not warrant vacatur based on recusal concerns.However, the Federal Circuit found that the PTAB failed to adequately consider evidence of copying presented by Centripetal as part of the obviousness analysis. The court vacated the Board’s final written decision and remanded the case for further proceedings, instructing the Board to properly address the evidence of copying. The disposition by the Federal Circuit was “vacated and remanded.” View "CENTRIPETAL NETWORKS, LLC v. PALO ALTO NETWORKS, INC. " on Justia Law

In the 1990s, AT&T obtained patents covering the transfer of packetized voice traffic between cellular base stations and switching centers. In 1996, AT&T assigned the patents to Lucent, which later assigned them to Avaya. In 2008, Avaya sold the patents for $2 million to High Point, reserving an interest in any proceeds obtained through litigation. High Point is based in Luxembourg and does not practice the patents. Within three days, High Point began sending demand letters asserting infringement, including to Sprint. Beginning in 1995, Sprint had built a network based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), which allows multiple cellphone users to share the same radio frequency. CDMA is now standard. AT&T (later Lucent) supplied equipment for the CDMA network. As that network grew, Sprint used unlicensed equipment from several vendors. In 2004, Sprint began upgrading the Lucent equipment with Motorola equipment. Motorola was not a party to the Lucent-Sprint licensing agreement. In 2006, Alcatel purchased Lucent. High Point claims that act terminated any license for Sprint’s use of Lucent equipment. Nortel began selling equipment to Sprint. Nortel was no longer a licensee to the patents. No infringement concerns were raised until 2008, when High Point sued, asserting violation of the licensing agreements and that the Sprint network operated through the combination of licensed and unlicensed equipment to facilitate the transmission of voice call traffic in an infringing manner. The Federal CIrcuit affirmed summary judgment, based on equitable estoppel. View "High Point SARL v. Sprint Nextel Corp." on Justia Law