Intel ‘Patent Thicket’ Antitrust Suit Booted by Ninth Cir. (1)

The Ninth Circuit backed Fortress Investment Group on Tuesday in a case that accuses it of hoarding patents and unfairly financing infringement litigation, finding a lower court rightly dismissed Intel Corp.'s attempt to equate aggressive IP enforcement with anticompetitive behavior.

Although the district court found Intel’s overall theory “compelling,” a US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel in San Francisco stopped short of opining on it and simply held that Intel’s lawsuit was deficient.

“We need not resolve the broader question of whether this type of lawsuit reflects a proper invocation of the antitrust laws because we agree ...