Patent Law Victory at the Federal Circuit

On November 30, 2022, our firm won a significant patent law victory at the Federal Circuit on behalf of our long-standing client Valve Corporation. At the district court, Valve successfully moved to strike portions of the plaintiff’s infringement expert’s report that diverged from an agreed-upon interpretation of a patent claim term. Valve then successfully moved for summary judgment of noninfringement, arguing that the plaintiff failed to present admissible evidence of infringement under the correct interpretation.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit, in a unanimous precedential opinion, agreed with Valve and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion on the motion to strike, and that summary judgment was proper. The Court emphasized that “the grant of a motion to strike expert testimony is not improper when such testimony is based on a claim construction that is materially different from the construction adopted by the parties and the court.”

We share this great outcome with our co-counsel team at Fox Rothschild LLP and Valve’s fantastic in-house legal team. The Federal Circuit’s opinion is below: