Taking Stock: A Review of Justice Stevens’s Last Book and an Appreciation of His Extraordinary Service on the Supreme Court

RODGER CITRON

Rodger D. Citron, the Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and a Professor of Law at Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, comments on the late Justice John Paul Stevens’s last book, The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years. Citron laments that, in his view, the memoir is too long yet does not say enough, but he lauds the justice for his outstanding service on the Supreme Court.

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Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Trend Micro Inc.

Docket: 19-1122

Opinion Date: December 19, 2019

Judge: Stoll

Areas of Law: Intellectual Property, Legal Ethics, Patents

IV alleged infringement of patents directed to filtering data files (such as email messages) based on content. The court severed the defendants. During claim construction in the Symantec action, IV’s expert consistently opined that a “characteristic” as used in asserted claims is “an attribute of the document such as whether it contains a virus or is SPAM or bulk email or includes copyrighted content.” The court adopted that construction. At the Symantec trial, IV’s expert changed his opinion, testifying that bulk email was not a characteristic. During a clarification hearing, IV’s counsel maintained that the expert had not changed his opinion and that bulk email “never was” within the scope of claim 9. The court clarified its claim constructions, stating that it “learn[ed] only at the last minute” that IV understood the construction to mean “that bulk email was excluded from claim 9 when it was clearly in the other claims ... a surprise inconsistent with the representations from” IV, and not what was intended. The court granted Micro judgment in part, holding the asserted claims invalid, canceled the Micro trial, and concluded that IV’s conduct was exceptional “solely with respect to” the changed testimony but that the case overall was not exceptional under 35 U.S.C. 285 and awarded Micro $444,051.14 in attorney fees. The Federal Circuit vacated. The district court should have determined whether the circumstances surrounding the expert’s changed opinion were such that, when considered as part of the totality of circumstances, the case stands out as exceptional, i.e., the case stands out among others with respect to the substantive strength of a party’s litigating position or the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated.