- Acorda Therapeutics 23-2374.pdf

• What pleading controls jurisdiction for FAA confirmation/modification proceedings.: Consistent with Badgerow, the jurisdictional inquiry for FAA petitions to confirm/modify/vacate focuses on the face of the case-initiating petition (if unamended), not a look-through to the claims and issues litigated in arbitration.
• Whether a request to confirm an arbitral award necessarily raises the correctness of the arbitral merits (including patent-law merits).: Because confirmation under 9 U.S.C. §§ 9/207 does not require pleading or proving that the arbitrators’ legal rulings were correct, a petition seeking confirmation does not, by itself, necessarily raise federal patent-law issues embedded in the award.

- Adnexus 24-1551.pdf

• How courts should handle claim-construction disputes at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage.: If claim construction is necessary to decide a motion to dismiss, the court must either adopt the non-moving party’s plausible construction for purposes of the motion or resolve the dispute to the extent needed after providing appropriate procedural safeguards; it is error to effectively decide the dispute against the non-movant by assumption.

- Akamai 24-1571.pdf

• Appellate disposition where district court provided alternative independent grounds (exclusion and merits insufficiency).: An appellate court may affirm summary judgment on any independently sufficient ground supported by the record and may decline to reach evidentiary-exclusion issues when the merits provide an adequate basis to affirm.

- Alivecor 23-1512.pdf

• Whether a party may raise for the first time on appeal an argument that the IPR petitioner violated routine discovery obligations by not producing allegedly inconsistent secondary-consideration evidence from parallel litigation.: An argument that a party violated PTAB discovery obligations is forfeited on appeal when not presented to the Board, absent exceptional circumstances; a party must raise the issue to the Board (including via motions to submit supplemental information or seek relief) to preserve it for appellate review.

- Ancora 23-1674.pdf

• Whether a new “inoperability” challenge to the proposed prior-art combination may be raised for the first time on appeal from an IPR final written decision.: A patent owner waives an inoperability argument not presented in its IPR petition response, and the Federal Circuit will not consider it when raised впервые on appeal.

- Aortic Innovations 24-1145.pdf

• Whether judicial estoppel could be asserted on appeal based on allegedly inconsistent positions taken before the PTAB and district court.: A judicial-estoppel theory not properly raised and developed in the district court is forfeited on appeal absent exceptional circumstances.

- Appl 23-1475.pdf

• Forfeiture of merits arguments not presented to the PTAB.: Arguments for reversing an IPR final written decision that were not raised before the Board are forfeited on appeal absent exceptional circumstances.

- Azurity Pharma 23-1977.pdf

• Effect of a pretrial stipulation about “suitable flavoring agents” on the ability to assert prosecution disclaimer.: A pretrial stipulation is interpreted in context and will not be read to concede infringement or waive a litigated defense when its text and placement among other stipulations, and its provenance, show it merely addresses general meaning/possibility rather than whether the accused product meets claim limitations.

- Bearbox 23-1922.pdf [NEEDS_REVIEW]

• Preservation of appellate challenge to exclusion of evidence at trial.: A party generally cannot obtain appellate relief for exclusion of testimony without making an offer of proof sufficient to show the substance of the excluded evidence and enable prejudice review under Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(2).

- Coda Development 23-1880.pdf

• Whether the evidence could sustain the jury’s trade-secret misappropriation verdict after Rule 50(b) motion.: JMOL is proper where, even viewing the record in the nonmovant’s favor, no reasonable jury could find all required elements of misappropriation satisfied for each asserted trade secret.
• Effect of public disclosures and attempts to narrow a trade secret at trial.: Information publicly disclosed in patent publications or trade articles cannot qualify as a trade secret, and a plaintiff cannot salvage an overbroad/publicly disclosed definition by later injecting narrowing limitations through witness testimony or attorney argument when those limitations were not included in its required trade-secret identification.
• Whether jury findings on legal claims bound the court’s resolution of equitable correction-of-inventorship.: A district court does not err in making Rule 52 findings on issues not submitted to the jury; where the jury was not asked to compare patent-claim scope to the alleged trade secret, the court may find scope differences without conflicting with any jury findings.

- Colibri Heart Valve 23-2153.pdf

• Whether Medtronic waived/procedurally forfeited its prosecution-history-estoppel ground for JMOL by a pretrial statement disclaiming the defense.: A party does not waive a legal JMOL ground where the record reasonably shows it merely declined to present the issue to the jury, later raised the issue in a Rule 50(a) motion, the opponent responded on the merits without timely pressing waiver, and the district court addressed the issue on the merits without prejudice.

- Dollar Financial Group 23-1375.pdf [NEEDS_REVIEW]

• Whether a party can obtain appellate consideration of tacking when it was not presented to the TTAB.: A tacking theory is forfeited when not clearly raised and developed before the Board; quoting or discussing “substantially identical” goods/services without invoking tacking does not preserve the issue for appeal.

- Ecofactor 23-1101.pdf

• Standard of review and remedy for erroneous admission of expert damages testimony under Fifth Circuit law.: When unreliable expert damages testimony is admitted and the reviewing court cannot be confident the error had only a very slight effect on the verdict, the admission is prejudicial and the proper remedy is reversal of the denial of a new trial and remand for a new trial on damages.

- Egenera 23-1428.pdf

• (no holding tagged to this category)

- Escapex IP 24-1201.pdf

• Whether declarations from a party’s own personnel constitute 'newly discovered evidence' under Rule 59(e).: Evidence is not 'newly discovered' for Rule 59(e) purposes when it comes from witnesses within the movant’s control and concerns information that was always available and could reasonably have been presented before judgment.
• Whether a Rule 59(e) motion can be used to present evidence or arguments that could have been raised earlier, and the consequences of not raising a Rule 59(e) ground below.: Rule 59(e) may not be used to introduce evidence or arguments for the first time that could reasonably have been raised earlier, and a party forfeits appellate reliance on a Rule 59(e) theory (e.g., 'manifest injustice') not actually presented to the district court.

- Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft 23-2267.pdf [NEEDS_REVIEW]

• Whether the Federal Circuit should grant the patentee’s cross-summary-judgment request in the first instance after reversing defendant’s summary judgment.: On appeal from a grant of summary judgment, the Federal Circuit generally reviews the judgment entered and will not decide in the first instance that the non-prevailing party is entitled to summary judgment where that would require shifting burdens and viewing facts under a different Rule 56 posture not addressed below.

- Future Link 23-1056.pdf

• District court’s failure to address Rule 54(d)(1) costs: Where a party is the prevailing party, a district court abuses its discretion by denying or effectively failing to award Rule 54(d)(1) costs without addressing the request and articulating reasons; remand is required for the court to consider costs and explain its decision under regional-circuit law.
• Modification/exemption from protective-order access requirements: A request to modify or exempt a party from a Rule 26© protective order requires a particularized showing of good cause; generalized preferences about selecting or using consulting counsel without filing appearances do not compel modification, and denial is reviewed for abuse of discretion under regional-circuit law.

- Game Plan 24-1407.pdf

• Whether dismissal of an opposition for lack of proof was proper when the opposer introduced no trial evidence.: When the opposer’s testimony period expires and the record shows the opposer has not taken testimony or otherwise introduced evidence, the Board may enter judgment against the opposer for failure of proof under 37 C.F.R. § 2.132(a).

- IQE 24-1124.pdf [NEEDS_REVIEW]

• Proper step-one analysis under California’s anti-SLAPP statute when the challenged conduct is filing patent applications.: At anti-SLAPP step one, the court asks only whether the claim arises from protected petitioning activity; filing a patent application is protected activity, and where the complaint predicates misappropriation/interference liability on disclosure in filed applications, the claim arises from that protected act under the but-for test.
• Whether alleged unlawfulness (e.g., trade secret theft or misrepresentations in petitioning) can defeat anti-SLAPP step one.: A court may not collapse the anti-SLAPP inquiry by assessing alleged illegitimacy of the protected act at step one; challenges that the petitioning was wrongful are addressed at step two, where plaintiff must show a probability of prevailing.

- Incyte Pharma 23-1300.pdf

• Whether the appellant may submit new standing evidence with a reply brief via a supplemental declaration.: Where standing is not self-evident, an appellant must submit supporting evidence at the first appropriate opportunity (typically the opening brief); absent good cause, the court may decline to consider late-filed supplemental declarations, particularly where they add new theories or do not make standing patently obvious.

- Ingenico 23-1367.pdf

• Whether the district court’s failure to instruct on the presumption of validity warranted a new trial.: A district court does not reversibly err by omitting a separate presumption-of-validity instruction when the jury is otherwise properly and repeatedly instructed that invalidity must be proven by clear and convincing evidence.

- Jazz Pharma 24-2274.pdf

• Whether safe-harbor arguments were waived/forfeited when raised to challenge the legality of an injunction’s scope rather than liability for past infringement.: When a party challenges an injunction as facially unlawful because it necessarily prohibits statutorily exempt conduct, the argument presents a legal issue not requiring fact development to negate liability; the court may consider such an argument even if not clearly developed below, and it is not waived merely because §271(e)(1) can operate as an affirmative defense in other contexts.

- Kroy IP 23-1359.pdf

• Propriety of Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal based on collateral estoppel in these circumstances.: Because the district court’s estoppel theory was legally incorrect given the different burdens of proof and the unadjudicated status of the asserted claims, dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) was improper and the case must proceed on remand.

- Magema Tech. 24-1342.pdf

• Preservation of objection to late-introduced, improper noninfringement theory at trial.: When a party objects to an improper trial theory before it is presented and the court overrules the objection, the issue is preserved for appellate review without repeated objections each time the theory is reiterated.
• Waiver of O2 Micro claim-construction arguments not raised below.: Arguments that purported claim-scope disputes required further claim construction are waived on appeal when the party did not timely request construction or otherwise present the O2 Micro issue to the district court.

- Micron Tech. 23-2007.pdf

• Whether mandamus under the All Writs Act provides a jurisdictional basis to review the bond order.: Mandamus is unavailable when the appellant has other adequate means for relief in the district court, such as statutory procedures to seek modification or waiver of the bond for good cause or adequate assets.

- Mitek Systems 23-1687.pdf

• (no holding tagged to this category)

- Odyssey Logistics 23-2077.pdf

• Proper ground for dismissal of Odyssey’s complaint (jurisdiction vs. failure to state a claim).: Because forfeiture and related timeliness constraints are not jurisdictional and can be excused in appropriate circumstances, dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction was improper; however, affirmance was appropriate under Rule 12(b)(6) because the complaint failed to state a claim that the PTO’s denial was unlawful.

- Optis Cellular 22-1925.pdf

• Whether a single infringement verdict question covering multiple asserted patents satisfies the Seventh Amendment/Rule 48 unanimity requirement.: Because each asserted patent is a distinct cause of action, the verdict form must permit a unanimous jury determination on infringement as to each patent (at least patent-by-patent); a single “infringed ANY asserted claims” interrogatory improperly interweaves causes of action and can yield liability without juror agreement on which patent was infringed.
• Effect of a non-unanimous/indeterminate infringement verdict on a damages retrial that assumed infringement of all asserted patents.: When the liability verdict does not establish which patents were infringed, the district court cannot instruct a damages jury to assume infringement of all asserted patents or award damages for an unproven/unananimously found scope of infringement; damages must be vacated with the infringement judgment.

- Powerblock 24-1177.pdf

• (no holding tagged to this category)

- Recentive 23-2437.pdf

• Whether the district court abused its discretion in denying leave to amend as futile.: Denial of leave to amend is not an abuse of discretion where the plaintiff fails to propose amendments or identify plausible additional allegations that could change the § 101 outcome, making amendment futile.

- Regeneron Pharma 24-2351.pdf

• Preliminary-injunction standard applied to infringement disputes in patent cases.: A preliminary injunction should not issue if the accused infringer raises a substantial question regarding infringement (or validity/enforceability) that the patentee cannot show lacks substantial merit.

- Steuben Foods 23-1790.pdf

• Conditional new trial on infringement under Rule 50©(1) based solely on the same evidentiary assessment as the JMOL.: A conditional new-trial order cannot stand where it provides no independent grounds beyond those subsumed by the JMOL analysis and the appellate court reverses the JMOL; the conditional new trial on infringement must be reversed in that circumstance.
• Conditional new trials on invalidity and damages without stated grounds.: When a district court conditionally grants a new trial under Rule 50©(1), it must state the grounds; absent articulated reasoning, an appellate court cannot meaningfully review for abuse of discretion and should vacate and remand for further explanation.

- Top Brand 24-2191.pdf

• Whether a party waives a claim-construction position by not objecting to jury instructions after the court previously rejected it.: A party that clearly presented a claim-construction position during claim-construction proceedings does not waive that issue by failing to reassert the same objection at the jury-instruction stage after the court rejected it.
• Whether claim construction/legal issues must be preserved via Rule 50(a)/(b) after trial.: A purely legal issue resolved at summary judgment (such as claim construction) is preserved for appeal without a post-trial Rule 50 motion, consistent with Dupree.

- Trudell Medical 23-1777.pdf

• Whether an untimely/undisclosed noninfringement expert opinion may be presented at trial.: When a party fails to timely disclose an expert’s trial opinions and report as required by Rule 26(a)(2), Rule 37©(1) requires exclusion unless the failure is shown to be substantially justified or harmless, assessed under the Southern States factors; cross-examination at trial does not, by itself, cure the prejudice from lack of discovery.

- US Inventor 24-1396.pdf

• Use of post-filing events to cure standing defects and arguments first raised in reply.: Post-filing events can cure Article III standing defects only through a proper supplemental pleading under Rule 15(d); new standing theories based on events after filing that are raised for the first time in a reply brief do not establish standing on appeal.

- US Synthetic 23-1217.pdf

• Whether an enablement argument raised for the first time on appeal can be considered.: An enablement theory not presented to the ALJ or Commission is forfeited on appeal absent exceptional circumstances, and will not be addressed as a new ground for invalidity.

- Wash World 23-1841.pdf

• Preservation of a request for remittitur of a specific damages component tied to convoyed sales.: A remittitur issue is preserved when the movant repeatedly objected to the challenged damages theory and, in context, provided sufficient notice and record support such that the district court and opposing party understood the requested reduction, even if the movant did not initially specify the exact deduction in a single explicit request.