After Long Road Eyewear Patents Defeated

In 2002 Aspex Eyewear sued Altair Eyewear for infringement of three patents in the Southern District of New York.  After a claim construction ruling the district court granted Altair’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement.  The claim construction was reversed by the Federal Circuit and the case was returned to the district court where it was reassigned to Judge Young sitting by designation (several D. Mass. judges have been doing this to assist the SDNY with its docket) and then officially transferred to D. Mass.  In the meantime, Altair petitioned to reexamine one of the patents, but the PTO allowed all the original claims.  Then things got going in front of Judge Young.

Following a flurry of further summary judgment motions, which Judge Young called “mirror images” of each other, the parties agreed to have Judge Young decide the matter (which by this point involved only claim 1 of the reexamined patent) as a “case stated” on the papers.  A helpful footnote explains this procedure, while the next footnote takes other courts to task (including the Federal Circuit) for “defining factual determinations as matters of law when manifestly they are not.” 

After a separate recitation of factual issues, the court performed an extensive legal analysis of anticipation, obviousness, and infringement and granted summary judgment of invalidity due to obviousness and non-infringement.  But in a parting shot to the Federal Circuit, Judge Young acknowledged that his ruling was not the end of the game.  Here is the final footnote of the decision, replicated in its entirety for your reading pleasure: 

In most cases the trial judge, with the “satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed,” General Robert E. Lee, Farewell Address to Army of Northern Virginia (Apr. 10, 1865), and a reversal rate among the several circuits ranging from two to fourteen percent, has the added satisfaction of knowing that he has probably resolved the parties’ dispute and that they can get on with their business. Not so here.

Here the parties have fought each other to a standstill and any “victory” is phyrric. Given the monetary stakes involved and a Federal Circuit reversal rate exceeding forty percent, this Court is no more than a way station - an intermediate irritating event - preliminary to the main bout in the Federal Circuit.

Whatever the merits of such a system, it is undeniably slow and extraordinarily expensive. The most this Court can say is, “Good luck and Godspeed.” 

Aspex Eyewear, Inc. v. Altair Eyewear, Inc., 10-12202-WGY (D. Mass. Oct. 12, 2011)

10-12202-WGY SJ