(After a brief hiatus from case review)

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 three patent cases that were appealed from the district court level and decided by the Federal Circuit during the 46th calendar week of 2007. All opinions are precedential unless otherwise indicated.

Amini Innovation Corporation v. Anthony California, Inc., et al. (11/13/2007, non-precedential): affirmed appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California (case no. 03-CV-874); no reasoning provided within the opinion

HIF Bio, Inc., et al. v. Yung Shin Pharmaceuticals Industrial Co., LTD (doing business as Yung Shin Pharmaceuticals and Yung Shin Pharm, Ind. Co. Ltd.), et al. (11/13/2007): appeal from decision of district court remanding case to state court (remand order entered in response to a motion to dismiss brought by a defendant); appeal dismissed for lack of jurisdiction to review appeal; dispute involving inventorship and ownership of patent applications; 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d) deemed to bar the court’s review of the remand order; the district court held that “the inventorship and ownership of inventions are valid state law claims,” over which it lacked original (i.e. federal question or diversity) jurisdiction; “In short, because every § 1367(c) remand necessarily involves a predicate finding that the claims at issue lack an independent basis of subject matter jurisdiction, a remand based on declining supplemental jurisdiction can be colorably characterized as a remand based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, a remand based on declining supplemental jurisdiction must be considered within the class of remands described in § 1447(c) and thus barred from appellate review by § 1447(d).”

Slaby v. Berndt, et al. (11/14/2007, non-precedential): affirmed appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (case no. 06-CV-250); no reasoning provided within the opinion