• CONTRACT LAWS

United States Court of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit

Pacific Pictures Corporation Vs. United States District Court For The Central District Of California, Los Angeles (Decided on 17.04.2012)

Waiving of privilege - Whether a party waives attorney-client privilege forever by voluntarily disclosing privileged documents to the federal government.

Held, Generally the Court does not consider issues raised for the first time during oral argument, unless "failure to do so would result in manifest injustice" and the appellant would not be prejudiced by such consideration. There were several instances in which an attorney's behavior might waive the privilege, even without an explicit act by the client. As many of these documents fell within these situations, this Court did not consider it a manifest injustice to hold Petitioners to their apparent acceptance of the concerned Counsel's Authority to waive the privilege on behalf of his clients, who have never disputed his authority to do so. Petition for mandamus denied.

• INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS

Landmark Screens, Llc Vs. Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius, LLP,  and Thomas D. Kohler (Decided on 23.04.2012)

Patent - Fraud Claim - Challenge thereto - Whether the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive law

Held, The District Court failed to appreciate that while the pertinent reissue claims might be broader in some respects than their corresponding divisional claims, the reissue claims at the same time are in other respects narrower. Since the District Court did not reconcile these opposing scopes, its conclusion that the reissue claims necessarily encompassed the divisional claims was incorrect. The respective claims recited different manners of carrying out their respective "selecting" steps. District Court erred by simply concluding that the '916 divisional application's claims contain limitations not present in the RE'953 patent's claims and by failing to analyse these differences in language that might affect the scope of these claims. Hence, it could be concluded that there was error to hold that Petitioner could suffer no harm after the issuance of the RE'953 patent regarding reissue claims 43 and 58 and their corresponding dependent claims.