October 2009 – Click for full issue

• Federal Circuit requires district courts to scrutinize carefully evidence offered to support an infringement damages award and vacates lump-sum royalty award
• Federal Circuit expands the defensive use of claim preclusion arising from a prior judgment of noninfringement
• Openness of “comprising” did not overcome restrictive scope required by claim’s use of the term “each”
• Registering an article in the Copyright Office did not make the article publicly available
• Delaware Judge states that bifurcation of damages and willfulness from infringement should be the norm in patent cases
• Funding university research did not convey an express or implied license to the resulting patented technology
• University researcher’s agreement to assign future inventions to university employer trumped by a later agreement researcher had with a commercial entity that provided for an automatic assignment
• Two Federal Circuit cases limiting claim scope based on “Present Invention” language
• Notice of patent pool covering an industry standard and a general charge that any product compliant with the standard infringed was not actual notice under § 287