Thanks for visiting! Welcome to a new way to research case law. You are viewing a free summary from Descrybe.ai. For citation checking, legal issue analysis, and other advanced tools, explore our Legal Research Toolkit — not free, but close.
Symbol Tech. v. Lemelson Med., Ed. & Res. Found.
Citations: 429 F.3d 1051; 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 24588; 2005 WL 3193651Docket: 2004-1451
Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; November 15, 2005; Federal Appellate Court
Original Court Document: View Document
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is addressing a combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc submitted by Lemelson Medical, Education, Research Foundation, LP, the defendant-appellant, in a case involving multiple plaintiffs-appellees, including Symbol Technologies, Inc. and others. The court invited responses to the petition, which were provided by the plaintiffs-appellees and supported by amicus curiae briefs from Intel Corporation and the National Retail Federation. The merits panel initially reviewed the petition, and subsequently, the circuit judges in regular active service considered the rehearing requests. The court granted the petition for panel rehearing to amend a previous opinion issued on September 9, 2005. The amendment specifies that the district court’s ruling of unenforceability regarding 76 asserted claims is affirmed. Additionally, the court determined that the laches ruling should apply to all claims in the 14 asserted patents, contrary to the district court's limited application. The court reasoned that all claims were part of the lawsuit, invalidated and found not infringed, sharing the same specification and effective filing dates. As such, the subject matter of the patents had been pending for an unreasonable duration, justifying the application of laches to all remaining claims. Prejudice to the public has been established due to the extended duration of investment by parties, including the plaintiffs, in technology related to the delayed patents. This justifies extending the district court’s laches ruling of unenforceability to all claims of the asserted patents, rendering all claims of the 14 asserted patents unenforceable under prosecution laches. The language in the opinion has been modified to reflect that all 76 claims of Lemelson’s patents are unenforceable, affirming the judgment and extending it across all claims. Additionally, the petition for rehearing en banc has been denied, and the court's mandate will be issued on November 23, 2005. Judges Schall, Linn, and Prost did not participate in the vote. The document is officially dated November 16, 2005, and signed by Clerk Jan Horbaly.