Lockwood v. SHEPPARD MULLIN (Fed. Cir. 2010) (nonprecedential)
Last week, I wrote about the Lockwood case involving allegations that Sheppard Mullin should be held liable for filing a sham reexamination request. The district court had dismissed Lockwood's complaint — holding that there could be no federal cause of action for filing a sham reexamination request because, inter alia, that area is preempted by Federal Patent Laws.
The Federal Circuit (Judges Newman, Plager, and Prost) has now decided the appeal — affirming the district court decision without opinion. (Rule 36). Federal Circuit Rule 36 indicate that a panel may “enter a judgment of affirmance without opinion . . . [if] an opinion would have no precedential value.” Here, the Rule 36 opinion is surprising given the lack of precedent on this topic, the obvious third-party interest in the outcome of the case, and the dramatic rise in the use of reexaminations over the past decade.
In the appeal, briefs amici were filed by the TPL Group (arguing that “nothing in the reexamination law … indicates that Congress intended to prevent patent holders from [pursuing a state law claim of unlawful business conduct] when a baseless request for reexamination is filed for the purpose of harming a competitor); Professor Hricik (arguing that liability should be available); NDP Managed Security (arguing that the suit is not barred by California law); and O'Melveny & Myers (arguing that the reexamination statute preempts a court action for sham filing of a reexamination). Raymond Mercado (who previously worked for Lockwood) has written an academic article explaining his findings of extensive “reexamination abuse” by third-party requesters. Mercado argues that patentee's subject to sham reexamination requests should certainly be able to bring an action under the common law tort of malicious prosecution. In addition, Mercado argues for a new federal cause of action.
This case opens the door to some amount of bad-behaviour in the filing of reexamination requests. Patent attorneys who file sham-requests can be sanctioned through the USPTO's Office of Enrollment & Discipline. However, an anonymous third party requester may be untouchable.
– Dennis
