Google AdWords Patent Suit Appeal Rejected, Plus Rulings in Other Patent and Antidumping Cases
In Bid for Position LLC v. AOL, LLC, No. 2009-1068, the circuit court addressed an appeal in a patent infringement suit against defendants Google and AOL involving a patent describing a method for conducting a continuous auction, such as a consumers' auction on the internet for goods or services, or a vendors' auction for positions in an internet advertising display.
The court upheld a final judgment of noninfringement in favor of defendants as there was no error in finding noninfringment by Google's internet advertising system, AdWords, which runs continuous auctions to determine the placement of advertisements on Google's search results pages.
Vanderbilt Univ. v. Icos Corp, No. 2009-1258 was a patent action brought by Vanderbilt University against defendant claiming that certain Vanderbilt scientists should be added as joint inventors on two patents involving compounds and methods for treating erectile dysfunction. A ruling against the university was affirmed as: 1) the district court correctly concluded that the school failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence its claim of joint inventorship; and 2) although the district court opinion contains some erroneous statements regarding the law of joint inventorship and a misunderstanding of the relevance of American BioScience to the facts of this case, such errors do not affect the outcome of the appeal and were harmless in context.
In Nucor Corp. v. US, No. 2009-1234, the circuit court dealt with a ruling affirming the International Trade Commission's (ITC) second sunset review determination concerning antidumping and countervailing duty orders on corrosion-resistant carbon steel products from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Korea. The circuit court upheld the decision finding that the ITC has discretion to consider the likely differing conditions of competition among the subject imports in deciding whether to cumulatively assess their volume and effect under 19 U.S.C. section 1675a(a)(7).
Last, Yorkey v. Diab, No. 2008-1577, was an appeal involving a patent and patent application claiming inventions for measuring the concentration of oxygen in blood. A decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences against appellant was affirmed in part and reversed in part since: 1) a motion seeking invalidity of various claims of appellees' patent was properly denied as the asserted claims of appellees' application meet the written description requirement of section 112; but 2) the Board erred in finding that appellant failed to establish a prima facie case of actual reduction to practice.
Related Resources