Wednesday 29 September 2010

Contract appeal won't get to Federal Circuit where infringement is not an issue

"No infringement dispute, no appellate jurisdiction in hypothetical breach of contract claim" is the title of a note by Finnegan attorneys John J. Thuermer and Bart A. Gerstenblith which will soon be published in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice. It eplains the ruling in Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v Metabolite Laboratories, Inc., 599 F.3d 1277 (Fed. Cir. 2010) that an issue of patent law must be disputed in a suit based on state contract law in order for the Federal Circuit to have appellate jurisdiction.

This note has been chosen as one of a small number of Current Intelligence analyses which are made available free of charge to non-subscribers on account of their general interest or importance. You can read it in full here.

No comments: