Our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, Feb. 24, 2014 will be a discussion of a recent case regarding invalidity of certain claims of a patent, and another recent case regarding a claim under the Copyright Act seeking a declaratory judgment of joint authorship.  Brief synopses appear below.

In MEDTRONIC COREVALVE, LLC v. EDWARDS LIFESCIENCES CORP. (Fed. Cir. 1/22/14) (available here).  Medtronic CoreValve  appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court granting summary judgment to Edwards of invalidity of certain claims of the ’281 patent. Summary judgment was affirmed because Medtronic failed to specifically reference each earlier filed application in the intervening applications in the chain of priority for the ’281 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 120; the district court was correct to limit the priority date of the patent to no earlier than April 10, 2003

In BROWNSTEIN v. LINDSAY (3rd Cir. Nos. 12–2506, 12–4471. Argued July 10, 2013. — January 29, 2014) (available here), Appellant Brownstein sought declaratory judgment of joint authorship of an ethnic identification system that he created with Appellee Tina Lindsay called “E-Tech”.  At trial, the District Court granted Appellee’s judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(a) on Brownstein’s joint authorship claim. The District Court found that Brownstein’s claim was time-barred and that he could not succeed on the merits of his claim based on the evidence adduced at trial. The Court of appeal reversed and remanded for a new trial, stating that  an authorship claim arises and accrues when a plaintiff’s authorship has been “expressly repudiated” and that courts have no authority to cancel copyright registrations.

All are invited to join us in our discussion during the SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, Feb. 24, 2014 at Noon in our Westlake Village office. This activity is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit. If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Noelle Smith by 9 am Monday morning.