Shifting Burden of Production Does Not Shift Burden of Proof; PTO Deference

Technology Licensing Corp v. Videotek (Fed. Cir. 2008)

The independent inventor J. Carl Cooper invented and patented technology separating a sync signal from a video signal to better ensure vertical and horizontal hold on a video screen. Cooper assigned his rights to TLC which sued Videotek for infringement. Videotek pulled-in its supplier Gennum for indemnification. Gennum now remains as the only defendant.

Priority Date: Cooper's asserted patent claims priority to an earlier application filed in 1992. The district court found specifically that claim 33 could not claim priority all the way back because the claim included a limitation to an "other circuit" which was only disclosed in the subsequent continuation.

Burdens of Proof and Production: Although a defendant ultimately bears the burden of proving invalidity, the burden of producing evidence may shift back and forth during litigation. For instance, once a defendant provides evidence of anticipation, the patentee then has the "burden of going forward with evidence either that the prior art does not actually anticipate, or … that it is not prior art because the asserted claim is entitled to the benefit of a filing date prior to the alleged prior art." Proving priority requires evidence of the priority claim and also evidence showing that "the written description in the earlier application supports the claim." Here, the court required cooper to produce "sufficient evidence and argument to show that [the priority document] contains a written description that supports all the limitations of claim 33, the claim being asserted." Once the evidence is on the table, the claim will only be invalid if the defendant's proof remains is clear and convincing.

[B]ecause an issued patent is by statute presumed valid, a challenger has the burden of persuasion to show by clear and convincing evidence that the contrary is true. That ultimate burden never shifts, however much the burden of going forward may jump from one party to another as the issues in the case are raised and developed.

Here, the Federal Circuit agreed that the defendants had clearly proven that the original written description was insufficient – and thus that the patentee could not claim priority all the way back.

Deference To and Waiting For the PTO: The PTO issued Cooper's patent and then, through a reissue, again allowed the challenged claim to issue even after considering the same prior art (the reissue issued while the appeal was pending). On appeal, the Federal Circuit distinguished Ralston v. Far-Mar-Co (Fed. Cir. 1985). In Ralston, the court deferred to the PTO's determination of priority date. Here, however, there was no evidence that the PTO specifically considered the priority dates. However, the Federal Circuit refused to "add an additional deference-thumb to the scale, or, even more disruptive, our asking the trial court to reopen the entire invalidity question to reweigh the intangible worth of additional deference."

This is not to say that the determinations made by the corps of examiners are not important, or should not be worthy of appropriate deference to their expertise in these technical matters, especially when we have the benefit of well-reasoned explications. It is to say that when dealing with the intangible worth to be accorded an administrative agency's decision making, the judicial process cannot be held hostage to the timing of either the agency or the litigants who have invoked the agency's further review. In some circumstances a party may be able to obtain a stay from the trial court while awaiting the sought-for agency action; absent that, and absent extenuating circumstances not here present, the case must be decided on the record the litigants present for appeal.

Inequitable Conduct:

There has never been an exception [requiring submission of] anticipatory cumulative references, and we are not inclined to create one now.

Definiteness of Means Plus Function Claim: A MPF claim must be supported by structural disclosure found in the patent specification – this requirement is akin to the written description requirement and focuses on actual disclosure rather than enablement.

The question is not whether one of skill in the art would be capable of implementing a structure to perform the function, but whether that person would understand the written description itself to disclose such a structure.

In electronic circuit cases the actual circuit disclosures are not necessarily required. Rather, generic "core logic" may be sufficient. Here, the defendants were unable to provide clear and convincing evidence of a lack of structure.

Comments

[Impatient in Idaho]

Speaking of waiting for the USPTO, does anyone had experience getting a certified copy of a file wrapper of a patent that has a paper file wrapper? I ordered one early in September and the PTO has no idea when it will be ready, although according to PAIR the file was out of the archive and at the PTO four weeks ago. Any reason I can't just send someone over there to copy the file themselves and have the PTO certify the copy?

[esc]

Was there an evidentiary standard for the burden of persuasion before? I thought that evidentiary standards were just reserved for facts. Consider:

Judge Plager said, "First, a clarification of terminology. We will refer to the generic problem of burdens only in the plural—burdens of proof—because there are within that phrase two distinct, and quite different, ideas. One is the burden of persuasion. That is the ultimate burden assigned to a party who must prove something to a specified degree of certainty—beyond a reasonable doubt (the criminal law standard of proof for guilt); by a preponderance of the evidence (the usual civil law standard for proof of a fact); or, perhaps, something in between, such as “clear and convincing,” the patent law evidentiary standard for establishing that a patent, otherwise presumed valid, is invalid." (p. 14).

In other words, Plager said that burden of persuasion for establishing invalidity is clear and convincing. This sounds like he assigned an evidentiary standard to the legal conclusion of invalidity. The prior case law on the presumption of validity did not do this. The prior case law says that the facts used to make the case for invalidity must be established clearly and convincingly. Once these facts are established, the challenging party tries to persuade the court with them. That is to say, the challenging party tries to persuade with clear and convincing evidence, not that the party tries to persuade clearly and convincingly. Whether or not the court is persuaded is a matter for the court to decide.

Thoughts?

[Lionel Hutz]

FYI, when I view this page using Firefox, the quoted sections are compressed to the left hand side so that two or three words appear per line. Looks fine in Explorer.