Welcome to Skilled in the Art. I'm Law.com IP reporter Scott Graham. Yes, I said in my last newsletter that Skilled in the Art would be on hiatus this week. But then I remembered that next week is a Federal Circuit calendar week. So here is a quick look at a few of the cases I've got my eye on.


Russ August & Kabat's Marc Fenster, left, and WilmerHale's Bill Lee

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Who's Arguing?

➤ Conversant Wireless Licensing v. Apple. Things were looking pretty good for Conversant Wireless in 2016. Overcoming the hometown effect, the NPE persuaded a San Jose jury that Apple had infringed two of its patents on synchronizing base stations with mobile devices and won a $7.3 million verdict.

Half of the verdict was erased in 2018 when the Federal Circuit ruled one of the patents not infringed. But the second was a close call. The appellate court found U.S. Patent 6,477,151 valid and infringed—but there was a potential problem with its enforceability. Original inventor Nokia had proposed including the technology in the General Packet Radio Service standard. But when ETSI chose a nearly identical version from Ericsson instead, Nokia chose not to tell ETSI that it had applied for a patent on its version. (Nokia assigned the patent to Conversant in 2011.)