Analysis
Deep dives on the cases worth more than a card on the board.
VDPP v. Volkswagen: Settlement Licensees Must Mark if You Want Pre-Suit Damages
A non-practicing owner seeking pre-suit damages has to plead that its licensees complied with 35 U.S.C. 287(a). Settlement licenses count. Leave to amend was futile.
Constellation v. LG: Optimization Claims Are Abstract. Specific Constellations Are Not.
A modified precedential opinion vacates eligibility of result-oriented optimization claims and affirms claims reciting specific non-uniform constellations. Infringement and the $6.75 per-television royalty survive.
Exelixis v. MSN: Chemical Name Plus Crystalline Structure Can Support a Salt Genus
Written description for crystalline cabozantinib (L)-malate salts is affirmed. The appeal on claim 3 of the '349 patent is dismissed as moot, and the no-inherency judgment on that claim is vacated.
Five Patents, One Launch: What Incuvate's Suit Against Penumbra Tells Us About Continuation Strategy
All five asserted patents descend from a single 2014 application, and the newest issued six months before the complaint. The continuation strategy, the home-district venue choice, and Penumbra's PTAB history each tell you something about how this case will unfold.
Dynamic Drinkware Survives the AIA: Dental Monitoring Vacates a Penumbra-Based IPR
A published application is prior art as of its provisional filing date only if that provisional supplies section 112(a) written description support for at least one published claim of the reference. The Board's ministerial Penumbra test does not.
Netlist Opens a Dual-Track Fight with Micron on DDR5 Modules. The ITC Case Is Not Instituted.
A Central District of California complaint and an ITC receipt notice landed in the same week, with a same-day Micron declaratory-judgment action in Delaware. Samsung's new license is in the background. None of this is a verdict, and none of it is the older DDR4 case.
BoomCloud 360, Apple, and a Three-Forum Audio Fight. Midland Asserts One Trio, the DJ Another.
Apple filed first in the Southern District of California on one trio of patents. BoomCloud 360 followed in Midland, then at the ITC, asserting a different trio against Apple and, the same day, Google. The '527 DJ patent and the '078 Midland patent share a Crosstalk Cancellation B-Chain title. They are different numbers.
Navitas Sues Renesas in Marshall on Four GaN Patents. Venue Rests on the Alien Statute.
Navitas Semiconductor Ireland sued Renesas Electronics in the Eastern District of Texas on four gallium-nitride patents. Renesas is a Tokyo corporation; venue is pleaded under section 1391(c)(3).
Ex parte Chowdhury Reverses an Improper Markush Rejection. The Office Then Designated It Informative.
A February 5, 2026 reversal, designated informative on August 25, holds that a Markush grouping is proper if the specification describes the recited members as performing similar functions in the context of the invention. Structural divergence is not fatal if the species are substitutable for that function.
T-Mobile v. KAIFI Is a Settlement Fight. The Federal Circuit Sent It to the Fifth Circuit.
Whether an asserted claim "survives" an ex parte reexamination is a Texas-law contract question. It does not confer Federal Circuit jurisdiction, so the appeal is transferred.
AML IP v. Bath & Body Works: Improper Venue Does Not Bar a Simultaneous Section 101 Dismissal.
A district court that finds venue improper may still reach a concurrently briefed Rule 12(b)(6) ineligibility motion. The Federal Circuit affirmed. It refused to opine on preclusion.