Chief Judge Gary Sharpe
Both PPC Broadband and Corning Gilbert design and make coaxial cable connectors. On Jan. 13, 2004, PPC was issued the ’446 patent for a coaxial cable connector. It did not license the ’446 patent’s use by Corning Gilbert. PPC’s May 8, 2013, lawsuit alleged the ’446 patent’s infringement by Corning Gilbert’s UltraRange series connectors. In a still pending, prior infringement action, PPC alleged that Corning Gilbert’s Ultra Range coaxial cable connectors infringed on its ’194 and ’940 patents. District court denied Corning Gilbert dismissal of PPC’s suit over the ’446 patent, under the “claim splitting” doctrine, as duplicative of PPC’s prior infringement suit. The Federal Circuit has held that infringement claims based on different patents do not satisfy the “same transaction” requirement for res judicata treatment. Under Kearns v. Gen. Motors, because “each patent establishes an independent and distinct property right…[e]ach patent asserted raises an independent and distinct cause of action.” Kearns makes clear that because each patent represents a distinct cause of action, a second patent infringement action is not precluded where it deals with patents different from those raised in an earlier action.
