The Missing V-Word in KSR v. Teleflex : VACATED

Everyone is writing about the Supreme Court's decision in KSR v. Teleflex. I have already written a little about it, in anticipation of the decision (IPToday, April 2007, pp. 29-31), and I am not going to jump in again to decide whether the sky has fallen now, or not. (My first entry into blogdom wondered about the falling sky after MedImmune, so perhaps that will be a theme of myunpublishedworks, the blog.)

No, what I want to mention is that what the Federal Circuit did in Teleflex was to VACATE the summary judgment of obviousness, and remand for FINDINGS. It absolutely did NOT reverse. It absolutely did NOT find the patent in suit to be nonobvious.

Who is misleading us?

Among others, the Supreme Court itself. The word "vacat!" is absent entirely from the opinion. In fact, the appeals court decision is affirmatively characterized as a REVERSAL, rather than a VACATING. (See REFERENCES below for supporting quotations.)

I am pretty sure I learned in law school that VACATING was not the same as REVERSING, and I am pretty sure that when I have practiced law, everyone acted like those two words were different, at least for the parties to the suit. But maybe everyone on the Court is so far removed from either law school or practice that they see things differently?

Who is helping keep us misled?

The BNA PTCJ, among others. Its HIGHLIGHTS summary of the cases says: "Reversing and remanding a ruling of patent invalidity, the high court ...." (emphasis mine) No, there was no ruling from the Federal Circuit "of patent invalidity." There was not even a ruling of patent pro-validity. The only thing available for reversal by the Supreme Court was a vacating of a district court's ruling of invalidity. It's complicated, but not impossible.

Another surprising perpetrator is Hal Wegner, whose excellent newsleter had this parenthetical remark,

"(It would have been truly astounding for the Court to have affirmed a holding of 103 nonobviousness on the merits, something the Court the Court has never done in the entire history of this section of the statute.)"

I wrote him about how truly astounding it would be for the Court to affirm something not before it. He thanked me, and then issued a correction about other things in that news item, but not the implication that the Federal Circuit had made a HOLDING OF NONOBVIOUSNESS. I remain astonished.

I have not checked the blogosphere enough yet, but I can confirm that, since the Supreme Court decision was announced, the words VACATED or VACATING and KSR have not yet appeared in the excellent blog of Dennis Crouch's www.patentlyo.com Or at least I could not find those words using wordsearch and google.

I start to wonder whether my copy of the Federal Circuit's decision is different from everyone else's.

Those INFAMOUS "gas pedal" patents: another shooting star in the (falling) sky?

Many (including Wegner) are pushing hard on all those "gas pedal" patents out there. But how many belong to KSR itself? (Answer: 15, on a search today of uspto.gov, looking for 'pedal' and assignee=ksr.) KSR's big victory in the Supreme Court makes its investment in those patents, if not also the research and development that led to them, look like a poor use of corporate time and money.

Will a whole new class of class action suits come out of KSR: stockholders claiming that their money is being misspent on acquiring big patent portfolios -- so often on minor improvements in crowded arts (where the arts may be crowded because of that very company's own efforts)? All that money on patent attorney fees and fees to the PTO, all that researchers' time wasted meeting with patent counsel, etc., etc., spent getting patents that are of no value does not sound like intelligent management. (The defense bar, with the patent bar to serve as experts, may be thrilled.)

Perhaps, though, the foreign counterpart patents are worth something in other countries, ones with a more pro-patent climate? And perhaps the US patents could be worth something again when the pendulum swings back, if the patents have not yet expired, and if their maintenance fees have been paid?

But maybe I exaggerate.

REFERENCES

Cases:

KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 2007 U.S. LEXIS 4745 (U.S. 2007): The Supreme Court thinks that it was reviewing a reversal of invalidity:

At slip op. 29: "...The District Court granted summary judgment for KSR. [new paragarph] With principal reliance on the TSM test, the Court of Appeals *reversed.*" (emphasis mine -RJM)

Teleflex, Inc. v. KSR Int'l Co., 119 Fed. Appx. 282 (Fed. Cir. 2005) , http://www.fedcir.gov/opinions/04-1152.pdf. Proof that the appeals court VACATED, rather than reversed:

At 283: "[W]e _vacate_ the grant of summary judgment and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings." (underlining by Federal Circuit)

At 286: "We agree with Teleflex that the district court did not apply the correct teaching-suggestion-motivation test. We also agree that, under that test, genuine issues of material fact exist, so as to render summary judgment of obviousness improper. For these reasons, we vacate the decision of the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion." (underlining of the word "vacate" in the last sentence appears only the LEXIS version of the decision, but on on the Federal Circuit's pdf.)

At 290: "(3) We consequently _vacate_ the decision of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings on the issue of obviousness, and, if necessary, proceedings on the issues of infringement and damages." (underlining by Federal Circuit)

*

Other References

Roberta J. Morris, "Thoughts on Patent-Bashing, Obviously," _Intellectual Property Today_, April 2007, at 29-31. Discussion of KSR is on 30-31.