Amazon Users’ Patent Win Doesn’t Need Top Court Review, DOJ Says

The U.S. Supreme Court shouldn’t review a patent owner’s request to rein in the Federal Circuit’s expansion of a doctrine blocking it from suing 80 Amazon.com Inc. customers for infringement, according to a brief submitted by the solicitor general.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in its use of the Kessler doctrine to bar PersonalWeb Technologies LLC from suing customers after the company voluntarily dismissed an earlier case accusing Amazon itself of infringing PersonalWeb’s data management patents, the solicitor general argued. The doctrine comes from a 1907 Supreme Court case that prevented patent infringement action against ...