Patent Infringement Matters Involving Safety Syringes and GPS Devices

MBO Lab., Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., No. 08-1288, involved a patent infringement suit relating to a patent design for a hypodermic safety syringe.  In rejecting the plaintiff's claim that the district court erred in holding that RE '885 claims 27, 28, 32, and 33 violate the rule against recapture, the court held that under step 2 of the three-step recapture test, the plaintiff violated the rule against recapture by claiming relative movement between the guard body and needle in the '885 patent.  However, the district court's invalidation of all other claims is reversed and the matter is remanded to address defendant's motion for summary judgment of non-infringement on claims 13, 19, and 20 as the district court erred in holding the entire RE '885 patent invalid.

SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, No. 09-1262 concerned a challenge to the International Trade Commission's finding that the defendants violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 through the unlawful importation, sale for importation, and sale after importation of certain Global Positioning System devices and products containing these devices that infringe certain patents owned by Global Locate Inc.  In affirming the decision of the Commission, the court held that there is substantial evidence to support the finding that Global Locate had standing to assert the '346 patent and that the Commission did not err in concluding that the defendant directly infringed certain claims of '651 patent and the '000 patent.  Lastly, the court held that the claims at issue are properly directed to patentable subject matter as they explicitly require the use of a GPS receiver and could not be performed without the use of such a receiver.

Related Resources:

• Full text of MBO Lab., Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co.,
• Full text of SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n