Federal Circuit Slams Phillips for Patent Case ‘Bait-and-Switch’

The Federal Circuit revived a lawsuit accusing Phillips 66 Co. of cribbing a patented invention for formulating low-sulfur heavy marine fuel oil, ruling a jury verdict was improperly tainted because Phillips was allowed to introduce a new legal defense on the eve of trial.

A three-judge panel disagreed with a federal judge in Houston who’d determined the late-added arguments were harmless error, saying they were “not satisfied that the verdict was uninfected by Phillips’ improper and prejudicial noninfringement theory,” according to a precedential opinion issued Monday by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The panel remanded the ...