In ParkerVision, Inc. v. Qualcomm Inc., Nos. 2026-1033 and 2026-1035 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 30, 2026), Judge Stark, writing for a panel with Judges Prost and Chen, dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and denied ParkerVision's request that the case be reassigned to a different judge on remand. The appeals come from the Middle District of Florida, No. 6:14-cv-00687-PGB-LHP (Judge Paul G. Byron). Each party bears its own costs.
What was left in the district court
The opinion says the 2014 action accuses Qualcomm Incorporated and Qualcomm Atheros, Inc. of infringing U.S. Patent 7,218,907 and U.S. Patent 6,091,940. It sorts the asserted claims into two groups: receiver claims, directed to down-conversion of electromagnetic signals, and transmitter claims, directed to up-conversion. Every asserted claim of the '907 patent is a receiver claim. For the '940 patent, ParkerVision asserts both receiver claims and transmitter claims. The opinion does not list the claim numbers.
The opinion recounts a separate action ParkerVision filed against Qualcomm in 2011, in which claim 23 of U.S. Patent 6,061,551, a claim relating to down-converting electromagnetic signals, was treated as representative. After a jury trial in that case, the district court granted Qualcomm judgment as a matter of law of non-infringement, and the Federal Circuit affirmed in ParkerVision, Inc. v. Qualcomm Inc., 621 F. App'x 1009 (Fed. Cir. 2015). In the 2014 case, the district court later granted Qualcomm summary judgment of non-infringement of both the receiver claims and the transmitter claims. In ParkerVision, Inc. v. Qualcomm Inc., 116 F.4th 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2024), the Federal Circuit vacated that judgment and remanded. On the receiver claims, it held that the district court erred in applying collateral estoppel from the 2015 judgment without expressly assessing, through the ordinary claim construction process, whether the asserted claims were materially the same in scope as the claim at issue there. On the transmitter claims, it vacated because the judgment rested on an erroneous exclusion of ParkerVision's expert witnesses.
On remand, the district court construed the claims, and based on its constructions the parties stipulated that Qualcomm's accused products did not infringe the receiver claims of either patent. At the parties' request, the court granted partial summary judgment of non-infringement of the asserted receiver claims, which disposed of every asserted claim of the '907 patent. The '940 patent's transmitter claims remained unresolved. On ParkerVision's motion, which Qualcomm opposed, the district court then entered what it called a final judgment of non-infringement of the receiver claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), and it severed and stayed the transmitter claims pending the appeal.
Why the '940 judgment was not final
The court started from 28 U.S.C. 1295(a)(1), which gives it jurisdiction over an appeal from a final decision in a civil action arising under the patent laws. A partial judgment under Rule 54(b) must be an ultimate disposition of an individual claim for relief, and the district court must expressly determine that there is no just reason for delay. The opinion explains that a claim in Rule 54(b) means a cause of action, while in patent law a claim is a numbered paragraph at the end of a patent. It relies on 35 U.S.C. 281, which gives a patentee a remedy by civil action for infringement of his patent; on 35 U.S.C. 271(a), which defines infringement by reference to the patent; on Senju Pharmaceutical Co. v. Apotex Inc., 746 F.3d 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2014); and on decisions holding that ownership attaches to a patent as a whole rather than to individual claims. From those authorities, the court concluded that, "in most if not all instances, each patent can be the basis for a single cause of action for patent infringement, but not more." It noted that a 1996 nonprecedential Federal Circuit decision, Donnelly Corp. v. Gentex Corp., and district courts in Delaware and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania had reached the same conclusion.
The court found further support in ParkerVision's operative first amended complaint, which pleaded a single count for the '940 patent, Count I: Infringement of the '940 Patent, without distinguishing receiver claims from transmitter claims. Because infringement of the '940 patent's receiver claims was not a separate cause of action, as pleaded or as permitted by precedent, Rule 54(b) did not allow a partial final judgment, and the court held that it lacked a final judgment over which it could exercise jurisdiction.
Why the '907 patent did not open the appeal
ParkerVision argued that the '907 patent was fully resolved, because every asserted claim of that patent is a receiver claim and all of them had been held not infringed. The court rejected that route on the text of Rule 54(b), which allows a partial final judgment only if the court expressly determines that there is no just reason for delay. The only express determination the district court made covered the receiver claims of the '907 and '940 patents together. The district court was not asked to, and did not, find that there was no just reason to delay an appeal of the '907 patent alone while the '940 patent's receiver and transmitter claims remained pending. Without that finding, the order was one that, in the rule's words, does not end the action as to any of the claims.
The court also declined pendent appellate jurisdiction over the '940 patent, because it had no jurisdiction over the '907 judgment to which a pendent claim could attach. It rejected the argument that the district court could have certified both judgments under 28 U.S.C. 1292(b), which requires its own certification, including a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and a finding that an immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation. The district court was not asked to make those findings and did not make them, and the court said it would not rest appellate jurisdiction on speculation about how the district court might have applied section 1292(b). In a footnote, the court noted that the Eighth Circuit once converted a deficient Rule 54(b) certification into a section 1292(b) appeal, and said this record did not permit the same determinations.
Reassignment denied
ParkerVision asked that the case be reassigned to a different judge on remand, pointing to statements by the district judge expressing frustration with the duration of the case, the need for multiple rounds of claim construction, and the multiple appeals, and to what the opinion calls the judge's "generalized criticism of trying patent cases to juries." Applying Eleventh Circuit law, under which reassignment is a severe remedy, the court held that ParkerVision had not met its burden under the three factors of Chudasama v. Mazda Motor Corp., 123 F.3d 1353 (11th Cir. 1997). First, it saw no reason to conclude that the judge would have difficulty putting his previous views and findings aside, noting that he had conducted the claim construction process the 2024 decision required despite his earlier view that construction was unnecessary. Second, it found the judge's concerns understandable given the length, nature, and complexity of the litigation, and said they did not give rise to any doubt that he had handled the matter impartially. Third, it found that reassignment would cause waste and duplication out of proportion to any gains, of which it found none. A footnote says the court did not evaluate the merits of the district court's claim construction, because it lacked jurisdiction to do so.
The patents
U.S. Patent 6,091,940, titled Method and system for frequency up-conversion, issued July 18, 2000. U.S. Patent 7,218,907, titled Method and circuit for down-converting a signal, issued May 15, 2007. Google Patents lists an anticipated expiration date of October 21, 2018, for both. The receiver and transmitter labels are the court's description of the asserted claims, not claim text.
What it means
The court answered no to the question it framed: whether Rule 54(b) permits, under the circumstances of this case, final judgment on infringement of only some claims of a patent while other claims of the same patent remain unresolved. Its reasoning rests on the view that, "in most if not all instances," each patent supports a single cause of action for infringement. The opinion also shows that an express no-just-reason-for-delay determination has to match the judgment a party seeks to appeal: a determination covering the receiver claims of both patents together did not support review of the '907 patent alone. The court did not reach the claim construction or the non-infringement judgment, and the dismissal is not an affirmance of either.
What to watch next
A footnote says all parties agreed that further proceedings on remand are needed whatever the disposition, and that on remand the case picks up where it was before the Rule 54(b) order, with how to proceed left to the district court. Watch for the district court's next order on the '940 patent's transmitter claims, and for whether either side asks for a determination limited to the '907 patent or for certification under 28 U.S.C. 1292(b). The case can also end at any point, for example through a settlement or a voluntary dismissal.