Decision in Administrative Matter, Plus Patent License Agreement Dispute

In Chambers v. Dep't of the Interior, No. 09-3120, the Federal Circuit faced a challenge to the decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board, affirming petitioner's removal from her position as the Chief of the United States Park Police, allegedly due to certain conversations she had with a member of the United States House Representative and a reporter from the Washington Post regarding the underfunding of the U.S. Park Police, which was later published. 

Although the charges 3, 5 and 6 are affirmed, the Board's decision to sustain charge 2 is reversed and remanded for reconsideration of whether removal remains a reasonable penalty and whether the agency has presented clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same personnel actions against petitioner based on the sustained charges in the absence of her protected disclosures.

ClearPlay, Inc. v. Abecassis, No. 09-1471, concerned a patent license agreement dispute arising from an underlying patent infringement suit involving patents related to systems for filtering objectionable content from certain video media, such as DVDs.  However, the appeal of the district court's order granting the preliminary injunction to plaintiff is transferred to the Eleventh Circuit for lack of jurisdiction as it appears that the district court had jurisdiction over the case based on diversity of citizenship and an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit would have been proper when the appeal was taken to this court. 

Related Resources:

• Full text of Chambers v. Dep't of the Interior
• Full text of ClearPlay, Inc. v. Abecassis