patent licensing Archives

Federal Circuit lacks jurisdiction over award that doesn’t raise issue of patent law

by Katherine Pappas | Aug 7, 2025 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that it lacked appellate jurisdiction over a district court judgment confirming an arbitration award stemming from a dispute over royalties paid under patent license and supply agreements. The Court concluded that the petition did not “necessarily raise” a substantial issue of patent law. Acorda Therapeutics Inc. v. Alkermes PLC, Case No. 2023-2374 (Fed. Cir. July 25, 2025) (Taranto, Hughes, Stark, JJ.)

Acorda Therapeutics, the developer of Ampyra®, a treatment for multiple sclerosis, licensed a patent from Alkermes covering Ampyra’s active ingredient. In exchange, Acorda paid running royalties and sourced the active ingredient directly from Alkermes. Although the patent expired in July 2018, Acorda continued making royalty payments for two years without formal protest.

In July 2020, Acorda challenged the ongoing payments and initiated arbitration. Acorda sought a declaration that the licensing royalty provision was unenforceable after the patent’s expiration and sought recovery of royalties paid after July 2018, invoking unjust enrichment. The arbitration tribunal agreed that the royalty provision was unenforceable after the patent’s expiration. However, it limited Acorda’s recovery to payments made under formal written protest, which only started in July 2020. This ruling relied on a state law principle that payments made with full knowledge of the facts, even if under a mistake of law, are not recoverable unless accompanied by written protest.

Acorda filed suit in federal district court under the Federal Arbitration Act, invoking diversity jurisdiction. It sought confirmation of the tribunal’s findings, except for the denial of recoupment of more than $65 million in unprotested payments made between 2018 and 2020. Acorda argued that the tribunal’s refusal to allow full recoupment constituted “manifest disregard” of the law and offered two alternative theories: the tribunal improperly applied state law in derogation of federal patent law, and the award effectively enforced an illegal licensing agreement. The district court upheld the tribunal’s award. Acorda appealed.

The Federal Circuit declined to reach the merits and instead examined its jurisdiction. Under the “well-pleaded complaint” rule, the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction applies only if patent law creates the cause of action or the plaintiff’s right to relief necessarily depends on resolving a substantial question of patent law.In its 1988 decision in Christianson v. Colt Industries and 2013 decision in Gunn v. Minton, the Supreme Court made clear that situations falling within the “special and small” second category (where right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of patent law) are “extremely rare.”

Here, Acorda’s complaint did not assert a patent cause of action. The request to confirm the arbitration award could be resolved without judicial interpretation of patent law. The Federal Circuit also noted that even the modification request, although it was premised on the award’s finding of unenforceability, presented two alternative arguments, only one of which involved patent law. Because the district court could have ruled for Acorda without addressing patent law, the Federal Circuit concluded that patent law was not “necessarily raised.” As a result, the Federal [...]

Continue Reading

Acts Supporting Induced Infringement Allegations Must Occur During Damages Period

by Katherine Pappas | Apr 14, 2022 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated a damages verdict because the acts supporting the induced infringement finding took place years before the statutory damages period and thus could not support a finding of specific intent to induce infringement. Roche Diagnostics Corporation v. Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC, Case Nos. 21-1609; -1633 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 8, 2022) (Prost, Taranto, JJ.) (Newman, J., dissenting).

Meso Scale Diagnostics (Meso) was formed in 1995 pursuant to a joint venture agreement between IGEN and Meso Scale Technologies. As part of the agreement, IGEN granted Meso exclusive rights to certain patents. In 1998, Roche acquired Boehringer Mannheim GmbH, an entity that IGEN had previously licensed to develop, use, manufacture and sell ECL assays and instruments in a particular field. As a result of the acquisition, Roche acquired Boehringer’s license rights, including the field-of-use restrictions. In 2003, IGEN and Roche terminated the 1992 agreement and executed a new agreement granting Roche a non-exclusive license to IGEN’s ECL technology in the field of “human patient diagnostics.” As part of the transaction, IGEN transferred its ECL patents to a newly formed company, BioVeris. In 2007, Roche also acquired BioVeris, including the ECL patents. Roche believed the acquisition meant the elimination of the field-of-use restrictions (and hence no patent liability) and began selling its products without regard to those restrictions.

In 2017, Roche sued Meso seeking a declaratory judgment that it did not infringe Meso’s rights arising from the 1995 joint venture license agreement. Meso counterclaimed for infringement. At summary judgment, Roche argued that Meso’s 1995 license didn’t convey the rights Meso asserted. The district court denied Roche’s summary judgment motion, and the parties tried the case to a jury. The jury found that Meso held exclusive license rights to the asserted claims, that Roche directly infringed one patent and induced infringement of two others and that Roche’s infringement was willful. The district court denied Roche’s post-trial motions challenging the infringement verdict and damages award. The district court granted Roche’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on willfulness but denied Meso’s motion to enhance damages. The district court also rendered a non-infringement judgment on three additional patents on the ground that Meso waived compulsory counterclaims. Roche appealed the findings regarding the scope of Meso’s license rights, the induced infringement verdict and the damages award. Meso appealed the district court’s application of the compulsory counterclaim rule.

The Federal Circuit first addressed the scope of Meso’s rights under the 1995 license agreement, which was the only ground on which Roche challenged the direct infringement judgment. The Court found that there was clear testimony from the manager of the joint venture that the work involved in developing the patent that was found to be directly infringed was part of the joint venture. The Court dismissed Roche’s argument that Meso acted in a manner that demonstrated that it had accepted Roche’s rights to the asserted patents, finding that the argument was “made in passing only in a footnote,” [...]

Continue Reading

Dispute on Arbitrability Needs an Arbitrator

by Paul Devinsky | Dec 2, 2021 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that a license agreement between two parties required an arbitrator to determine whether a dispute between the parties had to be heard by an arbitrator. ROHM Semiconductor USA, LLC v. MaxPower Semiconductor, Inc., Case No. 21-1709 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 12, 2021) (O’Malley, J.)

MaxPower owns patents directed to silicon transistor technology and licensed said patents to ROHM Japan in a technology license agreement (TLA) that contained an arbitration clause applicable to any disputes arising from or related to the TLA, including disputes regarding patent validity. A dispute arose between the parties regarding whether the patents covered certain ROHM Japan products. After MaxPower notified ROHM USA that it was initiating arbitration under the TLA, ROHM USA filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of noninfringement of four MaxPower patents in a California district court. After MaxPower filed a motion to compel arbitration, the district court granted the motion and dismissed the district court action, finding that the TLA “unmistakably delegate[s] the question of arbitrability to the arbitrator.” ROHM USA appealed.

The issue on appeal rested on legal determinations concerning whether the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability. The Federal Circuit noted that “courts should not assume that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability unless there is ‘clear and unmistakable’ evidence that they did so.” ROHM USA argued that its TLA with MaxPower lacked clear and unmistakable evidence of an agreement to arbitrate arbitrability, and that two provisions of the California Code of Civil Procedure (CCCP) were ambiguous regarding arbitrability. The Court noted that the CCCP sections cited by ROHM were explicitly superseded by another provision of the CCCP for international commercial arbitration.

ROHM USA then challenged the international nature of the case. ROHM USA attempted to position the matter as a dispute between two domestic corporations and stated that ROHM USA was not a signatory to the TLA at issue. The Federal Circuit concluded that ROHM USA clearly was covered by, and obligated under, the TLA, because the TLA explicitly applied to all subsidiaries of ROHM Japan. The Court also noted that the present case was “merely one aspect of a sprawling international dispute” involving MaxPower, ROHM Japan and ROHM USA.

ROHM USA also argued that the meaning of “may” in the CCCP’s statement that “[t]he arbitral tribunal may rule on its own jurisdiction” was ambiguous, but the Federal Circuit found that MaxPower’s interpretation of “may” as permissive (i.e., “may, if arbitrability is disputed”) made sense in the context of the TLA. The Court concluded:

In contracts between sophisticated parties, it is fair to hold the parties to all provisions of their contract, including those incorporated by reference. To hold otherwise would deprive sophisticated parties of a powerful tool commonly used to simplify their contract negotiations—adoption of provisions established by neutral third parties. And to refuse to give effect to the plain language of the contract, both its incorporation of the CCCP and the CCCP’s delegation of arbitrability to an arbitrator, would ignore [...]

Continue Reading