I will periodically post case citations from the Federal Circuit along with the date of the opinion/order and a brief list of the legal topics discussed therein (specifically those with additional embedded case law citations). My goal is to post new cases on a weekly basis. This posting covers the first four patent cases that were appealed from the district court level and decided by the Federal Circuit during the 14th calendar week of 2007. All opinions are precedential unless otherwise indicated.

Central Admixture Pharmacy Services v. Advanced Cardiac Solutions (04/03/2007): appeal of several summary judgment orders regarding willful infringement, dismissal of counterclaims, invalidity, false marking or false advertisement, and inequitable conduct and patent misuse (affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, vacated-in-part, and remanded); discussion of patent related to a chemical solution used during heart surgery (U.S. Patent No. 4,988,515, “Cardioplegic solution”); failure to comply with the requirements of the Bayh-Dole Act (and the government’s discretionary authority to take title to a patent); invalidation of a certificate of correction for impermissible broadening; use of the word “about” in claims for claim construction purposes; inequitable conduct defense and failure to plead it with requisite particularity; invalidity defense and failure to plead it with clear and convincing evidence

Black & Decker v. Robert Bosch Tool Corporation (order) (04/03/2007, non-precedential): district court entered a document entitled “Judgment in a Civil Case” relating to infringement and invalidity, but the unenforceability counterclaim remained pending (so no final judgment entered); dismissal of appeal because district court had not yet entered final judgment; district court bifurcation of unenforceability counterclaims from the trial on infringement and invalidity

In re Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., et al. (order) (04/03/2007, non-precedential): suit involving claims of willful patent infringement and breach of several license agreements; petition for writ of mandamus for district court to issue protective order to conditionally stay defendant CEO’s depositions; denial of a motion seeking protective order that lower-level employees could be interrogated instead of the CEOs because the CEOs “did not possess any unique knowledge to this matter”; regional circuit law applies regarding the review of a grant of a motion for a protective order; petition for writ of mandamus denied because the defendant “cannot show that its right to a particular result is clear and indisputable” relating to the district court’s exercise of its discretion to grant or deny a motion for a protective order

In re Mediatek, Inc. (order) (04/03/2007, non-precedential): suit involving claims of infringement of a number of patents related to CD-ROM chips; petition for writ of mandamus for district court to vacate orders requiring production of allegedly privileged attorney-client communications; opinions by counsel relating to the allegedly infringing chips; scope of opinions deemed “related to infringement and/or invalidity of the patents in suit” and ordered to be produced; no “clear and indisputable right to mandamus” shown by defendant relating to its contentions that it did not rely on additional opinions of counsel, that the opinions did not concern the accused products, and that “requiring production of the additional opinions would chill design-around attempts (petition for writ of mandamus denied)