Federal Circuit reignites Adobe patent dispute
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has revived a suit filed by network security company Tecsec that accuses Adobe of patent infringement.
On Friday, October 23, the Federal Circuit ruled that a Virginian court had erred in excluding evidence of induced infringement from a jury trial in the suit and remanded the decision.
Aspects of the case have been heard before the Federal Circuit three times previously, with the case being remanded back to the district twice.
In 2010, Tecsec accused several companies, including Adobe, of infringing four patents. Each of the patents covers systems and methods for multi-level security of various kinds of files being transmitted in a data network.
Following the series of remands to the district court, Adobe filed a motion in limine, requesting that evidence of induced infringement be excluded after March 3, 2011, (when the court construed claims and granted summary judgment of non-infringement to another defendant).
The court excluded the evidence and a jury at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found for TecSec on direct infringement, but not induced infringement.
However, the Virginian court subsequently reduced the damages award to zero, on the ground that there was no proof of any damages from direct infringement and the jury had rejected induced infringement.
Tecsec appealed against the decision and, last week, the Federal Circuit reignited the dispute.
Circuit Judge Richard Taranto, on behalf of the court, said: “The district court in this case erred when it concluded as a matter of law that, after the district court’s (later reversed) claim construction on March 3, 2011, Adobe ‘lacked the requisite intent to induce infringement’.”
According to the Federal Circuit, the Virginian court believed Adobe was entitled to rely on the 2011 claim construction and ruling of non-infringement as proof that the relevant induced acts didn’t infringe.
However, the Federal Circuit added that Adobe might have believed that the 2011 claim construction ruling was erroneous and would likely be reversed.
Taranto added: “We conclude that the district court legally erred in its primary rationale for ruling out inducement after March 3, 2011, namely, that the claim-construction ruling of that date furnished an objectively reasonable basis for a belief that use of the accused products did not infringe, even if Adobe did not have such a belief.”
The district court also claimed that “allowing TecSec to argue [post-March 3, 2011] induced or willful infringement ... would taint the trial and any verdict with undue prejudice and juror confusion”. Again, the Federal Circuit concluded that the lower court had erred in relying on this rationale.
The case was remanded for further proceedings on TecSec’s claim of inducement of infringement.
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