Patent Litigation

The Denver patent attorneys at the law offices of Thomas P. Howard, LLC regularly litigate utility and design patent infringement cases in federal courts for plaintiffs and defendants. The patent litigation attorneys of our firm have litigated patent infringement cases both in and out of Colorado, including the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, the Central and Northern Districts of California, and the District of Delaware, venues where the vast majority of patent infringement actions are filed. Our attorneys also have handled appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit where all patent appeals are heard. We also have litigated Section 337 actions before the International Trade Commission (ITC) which can issue exclusion orders to block the importation of infringing products into the United States.

Claim construction is a critical aspect of patent infringement lawsuits because the claims define the scope of a patent, and how the claims are construed often determines who wins or loses the case. See Adv. Cardiovascular Sys., Inc. v. SciMed Life Sys., Inc., 261 F.3d 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (vacated summary judgment based on reversed claim construction); Medtronic, Inc. v. Adv. Cardiovascular Sys., Inc., 248 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (affirmed judgment as a matter of law finding no patent infringement based on proper construction of means-plus-function claim language).

Indeed, many patent cases settle shortly after the court issues a claim construction order. Patent claims are construed according to the ordinary and customary meaning of the claim language to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312–3 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). One must also navigate a thicket of legal claim construction doctrines. E.g., Rhodia Chimie v. PPG Indus., Inc., 402 F.3d 1371, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (holding patent claims cannot be “construed one way in order to obtain their allowance and in a different way against accused infringers”); Abbott Labs. v. Sandoz, Inc., 566 F.3d 1282, 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“claims cannot ‘enlarge what is patented beyond what the inventor has described as the invention’”); Chef Am., Inc. v. Lamb-Weston, Inc., 358 F.3d 1371, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (courts “construe the claim as written, not as the patentees wish they had written it”).

For example, the firm litigated infringement of a design patent on the ornamental features of mechanical device in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont while also enforcing a counterpart utility patent on the same mechanical device in the District of Colorado. The firm settled the matters successfully on behalf of the client.

We know how to muster the right arguments and legal doctrines for properly interpreting patent claims. Our patent litigation attorneys include ex-examiners from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and have experience in a wide variety of technologies, including the electrical arts, mechanical devices, distributed systems, internet technologies, software and telecommunications.

We have the expertise and experience to implement a legal strategy to bring your claims to an efficient and successful resolution. For a free consult, e-mail us, or call us at ((303) 665-9845.