U.S. Circut Court of Appeals: Lexmarks Patents Ruled Invalid

[Anonymous]

Lexmarks Design Patents Ruled Invalid In Fight Vs. SCC Inc
Click on this link bellow to read the whole cases file 
https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca6/09-6287/09-6287-2012-08-29.pdf&embedded=true

Static Control Components, Inc v. Lexmark Int’l, Inc.
US 6th Circut Court of Appeals Affirms that Lexmarks Design Patents are Invalid
Decided & filed august 29th 2012 Lexmark manufactures printers and toner cartridges.
Remanufacturers acquire used Lexmark cartridges, refill them, and sell them at a lower cost. Lexmark developed microchips for the cartridges and the printers so that Lexmark printers will reject cartridges not containing a matching microchip and patented certain aspects of the cartridges. SC began replicating the microchips and selling them to remanufacturers along with other parts for repair and resale of Lexmark toner cartridges. Lexmark sued SC for copyright violations related to its source code in making the duplicate microchips and obtained a preliminary injunction. SC counterclaimed under federal and state antitrust and false-advertising laws. While that suit was pending, SC redesigned its microchips and sued Lexmark for declaratory judgment to establish that the redesigned microchips did not infringe any copyright. Lexmark counterclaimed again for copyright violations and added patent counterclaims. The suits were consolidated. The Sixth Circuit vacated the injunction and rejected Lexmark’s copyright theories. On remand, the court dismissed all SC counterclaims. A jury held that SC did not induce patent infringement and advised that Lexmark misused its patents. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of federal antitrust claims, but reversed dismissal of SC’s claims under the Lanham Act and certain state law claims.

http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/08/31/who_here_remembers_lexmark.php
Who Here Remembers Lexmark?
If you’ve been with us a very long time, you’ll remember this case from back in 2004. Lexmark made printers and ink cartridges and in order to stop people using 3rd-party replacement cartridges they jiggered up a UI that read information from a chip in the (their) ink cartridge. Static Control figured out what signals the printer wanted to get and made its own chipped cartridges that could be used. Lexmark sued, initially under a novel DMCA theory that tried to prevent SC or anyone else from reverse-engineering the printer-cartridge interface. They lost.

The case went back down to the trial level, Lexmark lost again, appealed up to the Sixth Circuit again, lost again. The case went back down. Meanwhile SC made new cartridges and started its own suit looking for a declaratory judgment that it was non-infringing. The suits got consolidated, and a jury trial was held, at which Lexmark lost again, and again appealed to the Sixth, which has just slapped them down again.

If anyone starts to think this more resembles a game of handball than an intellectual property case, I can’t blame them.

[Author]

September 4, 2012 at 8:42 AM