Sep. 12, 2013
Juanita Brooks
See more on Juanita BrooksFish & Richardson PC | San Diego | Practice type: Litigation
In July, Brooks scored a major win for her client, Fresenius Medical Care Holdings Inc., which was facing a $23.5 million lower court judgment in favor of Baxter International and Baxter Healthcare Corp.
At issue was the alleged infringement of a patent for a hemodialysis machine.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that federal trial and appellate courts are required by statute to dismiss pending patent cases if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the asserted claims through reexamination. Fresenius USA Inc. v. Baxter International Inc., 12-1334 (Fed. Cir., filed April 18, 2012).
"It's been a real saga," said Brooks, who has been litigating the case for seven years through a roller-coaster ride of motions and opinions.
The saga isn't over yet. Baxter has petitioned for rehearing en banc, Brooks said.
"I am optimistic. We believed from day one that these claims were invalid. Our strategy was to be tenacious and keep fighting."
She added, "It's a real testament to our client. It might have been less expensive for them to settle, but they felt correct in their belief and decided to go forward."
In another matter, Brooks and her team scored a complete win in December 2012 when a jury determined that there had been no infringement of three video compression patents involving Apple's iPod, iPad, iPhone and MacBook. Multimedia Patent Trust v. Apple Inc. et al, CV10-2618 (S.D. Cal., filed Dec. 20, 2010).
"We showed the jury that the patents the plaintiffs had, while they may have been interesting inventions, they were from a very long time ago," Brooks said. "The technology that was accused of infringing was Apple's technology that it had spent years and millions of dollars developing."
The case is on appeal.
- PAT BRODERICK
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