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The article focuses on disjointed application and discussion regarding patent injunction decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case in eBay v. MercExchange. It mentions analysis of grant rates based on patentee status showed that post-eBay patent assertion entity (PAE) injunction grants and differences in injunction decision outcomes between district courts and the Federal Circuit. It also mentions patent infringement and validity have been adjudged.

In an environment in which widely adopted technical standards may each be covered by large numbers of patents, there have been increasing calls for courts to determine "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory" (FRAND) royalties payable to holders of standards-essential patents (SEPs) using "topdown" methodologies. Top-down royalty approaches begin with the aggregate royalty that should be payable with respect to all SEPs covering a particular standard, and then allocate a portion of the total to individual SEPs. Top-down approaches avoid many drawbacks associated with bottom-up approaches in which royalties for individual SEPs are assessed, often in an inconsistent and piecemeal manner, without regard for the other SEPs that cover the standard. Yet despite the potential benefits of top-down methodologies, one of the most promising means for determining aggregate royalty levels--joint agreement by the members of the relevant standards-development organization (SDO)--has gained little traction. The idea of SDO participants jointly negotiating FRAND royalties attracted the attention of commentators and antitrust agencies about a decade ago, when a handful of SDOs began to explore mandatory ex ante rate disclosure requirements. But few SDOs adopted such policies, and joint negotiations were never incorporated into the mainstream standardization process. One reason that SDOs have been hesitant to endorse joint royalty negotiations is the perceived risk of antitrust liability arising from concerted action among competitors. But as numerous commentators and antitrust officials have reiterated, this fear is largely misplaced in the context of industry standardsetting. Thus, SDOs should follow the lead of patent pools and begin more actively to determine aggregate patent royalty burdens for standards that they develop. In addition, antitrust and competition authorities should assure the market that collective agreement on aggregate royalty rates alone should not give rise to antitrust liability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective This article investigates the role of organizations in the construction of expert authority by examining legal disputes about the credibility of expert witnesses who work for consulting firms, in academia, and in private practice offices and clinics. Methods I analyzed 472 deliberations of expert witness credibility summarized in judicial opinions from civil rights, patent infringement, and medical malpractice cases in U.S. district courts. Binary logistic regressions tested whether lawyers' challenges to experts' credibility or judges' decisions to admit or exclude experts' testimony differed according to experts' organizational location. Results Challenges to experts' credibility and decisions about their admissibility reflected the organizational context of experts' labor. Overall, consultants were most likely and private practitioners were least likely to overcome credibility challenges and be admitted into court. Conclusions Legal negotiations of experts' credibility depend on their organizational location. This suggests that organizations may also shape the attribution of expertise in other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Obama's 2013 veto of a US International Trade Commission (ITC) exclusion order, issued to address Apple Inc.'s infringement of a patent owned by Samsung, thrust the ITC's public interest inquiry into the spotlight. Historically, however, these factors rarely weighed against a remedy at the ITC. Likewise, US district courts have rarely declined to issue a permanent injunction after finding a patent valid and infringed due solely to the public interest factor--the last of the four factors that the Supreme Court put in place in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. More recent decisions addressing the public interest in both forums, however, show a willingness by the adjudicators to weigh both traditional public interest issues, such as health and well-being, and non-traditional arguments, such as public reliance and environmental concerns, against a patent owner's right to exclude. In this Article, we examine some of the successful traditional and non-traditional public interest arguments, both at the ITC and in US district courts. From this analysis, the Article outlines how parties involved in high-stakes patent litigation in either forum can craft public interest arguments to combat the threat of a permanent injunction or an ITC exclusion order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the greatest challenges facing patent holders is the enforcement of their rights against foreign (non-US) infringers. Jurisdictional rules can prevent patent holders from filing patent infringement suits where they have the greatest likelihood of success in enforcement, such as where the infringer is located, has its seat, or holds its assets. Instead, patent holders must file lawsuits in the country where the infringed patent was issued. But filing a patent lawsuit in a US court against a non-US infringer may be subject to various difficulties associated with the fact that US substantive patent law (particularly as regards its territorial scope) and conflict of laws rules are not always compatible and interoperable with the conflict of laws rules of other countries. Such insufficient compatibility and interoperability can lead to US judgments not being enforceable outside the United States. In the Hague Conference's Judgments Project, which the Conference relaunched in 2012, the United States has an opportunity to negotiate internationally-uniform conflict of laws rules to improve cross-border litigation, including cross-border patent litigation. This Article provides data on cross-border patent litigation that can be used to show the extent of the cross-border patent litigation problem and assist in assessing the appropriate degree of US involvement in the Judgments Project. The Article updates the author's earlier research on cross-border aspects of patent litigation, contributes to the rapidly growing body of empirical literature on patent litigation (including the literature on the "patent troll" phenomenon), and enriches the literature on foreign litigants in patent disputes and on transnational litigation in general (both of which suffer from a dearth of statistical data). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the practice of ghostwriting in formation of expert report by the lawyers which is unethical. Topics discussed include comment of Federal District Court in Michigan about unethical writing in case Numatics, Inc. v. Balluff, Inc related to patent dispute, differences between Federal and Utah State rules on expert reports and Identification between permissible assistance and improper participation in case of expert report formation.