IPBiz
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Thursday, November 20, 2014
CAFC in E.DIGITAL v. FUTUREWEI and HUAWEI DEVICE addresses collateral estoppel
From the decision:
To be clear, our decision that collateral estoppel
cannot apply to the construction of a claim in one patent
based on a previous claim construction of an unrelated
patent is not an invitation to assume the opposite is
always justified.
That is, a court cannot impose collateral
estoppel to bar a claim construction dispute
solely because the patents are related.
Each case requires a determinaion that
each of the requirements for collateral estoppel
are met, including that the
issue previously decided is identical to the one sought to be litigated.
A continuation-in-part, for instance,
may disclose new matter that could
materially impact the interpretation of a claim, and
therefore require a new claim construction inquiry.
As to re-examination:
Alhough we do not hold that
reexamination history cannot ever create a
new issue that would preclude the application of collateral estoppel, such
a scenario does not exist here because the
reexamination history in no way
modifies, clarifies, or even informs the
construction of the sole memory limitation.
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert
patent lawyer
