A “Golden Hour” for Defendants Accused of Joint Infringement

After a 27 page discussion on inequitable conduct, Judge Dyk dedicated a mere two paragraphs affirming a district court grant of JMOL that rejected a jury finding of infringement of both method claims and system claims. Golden Hour Data v. emsCharts, 2009-1306 -1396 (Fed. Cir. August 9, 2010).  For both the method and system claims, the Federal Circuit majority agreed with the district court that “that the evidence of control or direction was insufficient for the jury to infer control or direction.” Opinion at 27.

The claims of Golden Hour’s patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,117,073) are directed to an “integrated data management system for tracking a patient incident.” Claim 1, a system claim, requires (1) a dispatch module and (2) a billing module. Claim 15, a method claim, required steps of (1) collecting flight information, (2) collecting patient information from a clinical encounter, and (3) integrating the patient information and flight information.



The first defendant, emsCharts, developed a client billing module. The second defendant, Softtech, provided a flight dispatch and information module. “The two companies formed a strategic partnership, enabled their two programs to work together, and collaborated to sell the two programs as a unit.” Opinion at 7-8. According to an emsCharts press release, the defendants’ “partnership allows emsCharts to combine their existing product line with Softtech’s CAD [Computer Aided Dispatch] technology, enabling them to deliver a complete pre-hospital data solution for Emergency Medical Services.” J. Newman dissent at 5. Although the press release uses the term “partnership” and the majority refers to it as a “strategic partnership,” the opinion does not further elaborate on any actual legal relationship between Softtech and emsCharts with regard to the integrated system.

With respect to sales of the integrated system, the majority stated that “[s]uch a sale might well create liability on the part of emsCharts for the sale of the patented system, whether or not emsCharts controlled Softtech. The problem is that by agreement, claims 1 and 6-8 were submitted to the jury only on a joint infringement theory. Such a verdict can only be sustained if there was control or direction of Softtech by emsCharts.” Opinion at 28. Despite acknowledging the “strategic partnership” between the parties, the majority held that the necessary “control or direction” was still lacking.

The majority first considered the process claims and relied on Muniauction, Inc. v. Thomson Corp., 532 F.3d 1318, 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2008) and BMC Resources, Inc. v. Paymentech, L.P, 498 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2007), for the well established proposition that “control or direction” of one party by another is required for joint infringement of process claims. Without elaboration (or citation), however, the majority then extended this test to the system claims as well.

In her dissent, J. Newman suggests that “a collaborative effort as here, a “strategic partnership” to sell the infringing system as a unit, is not immune from infringement simply because the participating entities have a separate corporate status.” Dissent at 5. Judge Newman does not cite any precedent for this position, however.

Although only two paragraphs long (less than half the length of this post), Golden Hour is interesting for two reasons. First, it clearly applies the “controlling party” or “mastermind” standard for joint infringement to system claims as well as process claims. (This was suggested in BMC Resources, but not clearly part of the holding). Second, it is a case where two parties accused of joint infringement clearly worked closely together to integrate and sell the accused system and yet the resulting “strategic partnership” between the defendants was still not deemed close enough by the majority to support a jury verdict of joint infringement.