This is big!

Yesterday, on August 20, (75 days after the appeals hearing) the Court of Appeals sent the case back to District Court for the Western District of Texas and its judge Alan Albright.

Circuit Judges Lourie, Prost, and Stark concluded that the district court, under Judge Albright, erred in determining that the patent claim is indefinite.

The Federal Circuit disagreed with the district court’s conclusion. The appellate court interpreted the phrase based on the claim language, the specification, and particularly the prosecution history. (in view of Hirschberg)
In short, the appellate court accepts Neonode’s position on how the claim construction should be construed, determining that the “only one option” language refers to a situation wherein the representation consists of only one option for what function to activate at a given time

The appellate court also found that the district court incorrectly accepted Samsung’s argument that the term could have multiple interpretations, leading to the conclusion of indefiniteness.

Samsung had argued that the term “gliding… away” in the patent claim was also indefinite. The appellate court upheld the district court’s interpretation of this term, finding it to be clear and not contributing to indefiniteness.

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Judge Albright now have to open up the case again, update the earlier set schedule and get going.

Next step in the process could be Summary Judgement Motions: the parties may file motions for summary judgement. These motions ask the court to decide certain issues without a trial, often based on the claim constructions provided in the Markman order. [in this case the claim construction set by the Appeals Court]

After that, Discovery follows. All relevant documents, emails etc should be turned over to the other sides counsel for review. This is where you can find “goodies” in emails and documents. i.e statements you do not want the other side to see.
[I have personally seen this during several discovery processes…. ]

The discovery process also includes depositions; a sworn out-of-court testimony of a witness or party to the case, which is recorded for later use in court or for discovery purposes.

[I can assure you from personal experience, it’s not a pleasant process to spend 12 hours being questioned on camera.]

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Anyhow, now starts the interesting part of the litigation process, leading up to a jury trial. Do you as defendant want to settle now, or take the risk with a jury?
What documents can the plaintiff find and show the jury?
What statements from depositions can hurt you in front of the jury?
And the million/billion(?) dollar question; How much in damages might a jury award, compared to what it would cost me to settle now?