• INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FEDERAL CIRCUIT

MINZ JIF PAK V. DIETZ WATSON INC (Decided on 30.05.2012)

Validity of patent - Present Appeal filed against the order passed by United States District Court for the Southern District of California wherein it granted Defendants motion for summary judgment on invalidity and non-infringement against Plaintiff

Held, Having identified several errors in the District Court's obviousness analysis, this Court vacates and remands to the District Court. In Bausch & Lomb, Inc. v. BarnesHind/Hydrocurve, Inc., this Court as an Appellate Court may not make the required Graham factual findings and must therefore remand that determination to the District Court. The District Court should not ignore the four-part analysis the Authorities require. In light of the following section on the issue of infringement, however, this Court left to the District Court to decide whether any further proceedings were necessary. Further, the District Court might proceed if the parties were still contesting validity of the '148 patent.

• LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT LAWS

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, NINTH CIRCUIT

Schechner v. KPIX TV CBS (Decided on 29.05.2012)

Removal from job - Challenge thereto - Present Appeal filed against order passed by District Court wherein it granted summary judgment dismissing Plaintiff's claim

Held, In the instant case, the McDonnell Douglas three-step burden-shifting framework did not collapse into a single step when Plaintiffs' relied on statistical evidence to make a prima facie case of disparate treatment age discrimination. The Court held that a Plaintiff's statistical evidence need not account for the employer's non-discriminatory reason for the discharge in order to show a stark pattern of discrimination. Although Plaintiffs' established a prima facie case of discrimination, they did not present sufficient evidence of pretext to survive summary judgment.