THERASENSE, INC. (NOW KNOWN AS ABBOTT DIABETES CARE, INC.) AND ABBOTT LABORATORIES, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BECTON, DICKINSON AND COMPANY, AND NOVA BIOMEDICAL CORPORATION, Defendants-Appellees, AND BAYER HEALTHCARE LLC, Defendant-Appellee., 649 F.3d 1276

Summary

A competitor sued the patentees in U.S. district court in Massachusetts, seeking a judgment declaring that blood glucose test strips it sold did not infringe U.S. Patent Nos. 6,143,164 and 6,592,745, and the patentee countersued the competitor and other defendants in U.S. district court in California. The cases were consolidated in California, and that court found that the competitor and other defendants had not infringed the '164 and the '745 patents, and that U.S. Patent No. 5,820,551 was unenforceable due to inequitable conduct. A panel of the court of appeals upheld the district court's judgment and the court of appeals agreed to review the case en banc to address problems created by use of the inequitable conduct doctrine. The court found that it was necessary to tighten standards for finding inequitable conduct, and it adopted a standard that required an accused infringer to prove by clear and convincing evidence that a patent applicant acted with the specific intent to deceive ...