Customers Give Thanks to Federal Circuit for Right to Bring “Walker Process” Claims

While some of us were consulting U.S. Patent No. Des. 397,955 (“Turkey Decoration”) for home decorating tips this season…

View this document on Scribd

…the Federal Circuit remained hard at work cranking out opinions.

In Ritz Camera v. SanDisk, that court made an important clarification regarding the scope of so–called Walker Process claims. So–called because of a 1965 Supreme Court opinion of that name, a Walker Process claim allows suits against patent–owners for antitrust violations based on the use of fraudulently obtained patents to create or preserve monopoly power in the market. In the Ritz Camera opinion, the Federal Circuit concluded that direct purchasers of products sold under a patent can sue for such antitrust violations even if those customers lack direct standing to challenge the patent’s validity or enforceability because they are not competitors of the patent–owner and have not been accused of infringement themselves. While the patent–owner, SanDisk, urged the court to limit Walker Process claims to competitors, the Federal Circuit determined that the case-law required (and permitted) no such limitation. Thus, Ritz Camera is free to sue SanDisk for attempting to exert monopoly power through the use of fraudulently obtained patents. As the court reasoned, however, this decision is hardly likely to open the floodgates to such claims, given how hard it is to prove intentional fraud in the procurement of a patent.