Trump Swings His Wrecking Ball at Social Security

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

Neil H. Buchanan—UF law professor and economist—dispels some common misunderstandings about the future of Social Security but explains why President Trump’s recent comments are cause for concern. Buchanan explains why, contrary to claims by reporters and politicians, Social Security is not at the brink of insolvency, but points out that if Trump were to permanently eliminate payroll taxes, that would doom the program on which tens of millions of retirees depend.

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Egenera, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

Court: US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Docket: 19-2015

Opinion Date: August 28, 2020

Judge: Sharon Prost

Areas of Law: Intellectual Property, Patents

Egenera sued, alleging that Cisco’s enterprise server systems infringed the 430 patent. Before claim construction, and with Cisco’s inter partes review (IPR) petition pending, Egenera separately petitioned the Patent and Trademark Office to remove one of the 11 listed inventors from the patent. Egenera realized that all claim limitations had been conceived before one listed inventor, Schulter, had started working there. The Patent Board declined to institute IPR; Schulter was removed as an inventor. Following the district court’s claim construction of a “logic to modify” limitation and a trial on inventorship, Egenera asked the district court to add Schulter back to the patent. The court determined that judicial estoppel prevented Egenera from relisting Schulter and found the patent invalid for failing to name all inventors. The Federal Circuit affirmed the claim construction but vacated the invalidity judgment based on judicial estoppel. Egenera advanced no “clearly inconsistent” positions. Inventorship can depend on claim construction. Egenera’s inventorship petition was consistent with the underlying presumption was that Egenera’s claim terms, lacking “means,” were not means-plus-function. Schulter likely would not be an inventor under Egenera’s preferred construction but inventorship under that construction was not decided. Once claim construction issues were decided, it was entirely consistent for Egenera to request an accompanying formal correction of inventorship. In addition, Egenera did not succeed in persuading a court or court-like tribunal to accept its first position.