shutterstock_192614126_ken_wolter
25 September 2020PatentsRory O'Neill

HP facing new trial as Fed Circuit cancels patent win

A patent dispute involving Hewlett-Packard (HP) will go back to trial after a mixed ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

In a precedential decision issued yesterday, September 24, the Federal Circuit said the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas was wrong in how it constructed certain claims of a patent owned by Network-1 Enterprises.

Network-1 has accused HP of infringing the patent, which covers a system for remotely powering devices over an ethernet network.

HP won an initial victory in the case in 2018, after a jury at the Texas court found the patent to be invalid, and not infringed.

But the Federal Circuit has now ordered a new trial after Network-1 successfully argued that the court wrongly interpreted certain claims of the patent.

According to the judgment, the district court should have construed “main power source” to include AC currents, as well as DC currents.

As the DC-only construction was included as part of the jury’s instructions, Network-1 argued that the finding of infringement was prejudicial and should be struck out. The Federal Circuit agreed, rejecting HP’s argument that the error was inconsequential and didn’t impact on the jury’s findings.

It wasn’t a total victory for Network-1, as the Federal Circuit also overturned the district court and allowed HP to raise challenges to the validity of the patent.

The district court had found that HP was barred from raising some of its validity challenges because it had joined an inter partes review (IPR) of the Network-1 patent requested by technology company Avaya.

According to the Texas court, HP could have raised these arguments as part of the separate IPR proceedings and was therefore barred from doing so at trial.

But the Federal Circuit said this was incorrect, as joined parties aren’t allowed raise arguments in IPRs that were not already raised when the proceedings were instituted.

Did you enjoy reading this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox

Today’s top stories

WIPR Five minutes with... Aaron Wood of Blaser Mills

Kenyan authorities uncover royalty theft

COVID-19 and IP

Honigman hires ex-Steptoe & Johnson IP head

Already registered?

Login to your account

To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.

Two Weeks Free Trial

For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk


More on this story

Patents
18 September 2020   Koninklijke Philips NV has filed a spate of suits against competitors Dell Technologies, Lenovo, HP, and Intel in a US district court, accusing them of infringing copy-protected patents.
Patents
13 July 2020   A panel of US federal judges has denied patent owner Uniloc’s request to seal documents in its infringement suit against Apple.