Clever Pleading Can’t Save Koss’s Patents from Issue Preclusion Invalidity
Patent – Patently-O 2024-07-26
Summary:
by Dennis Crouch
Koss Corporation v. Bose Corporation, 22-2090 (Fed. Cir. July 19, 2024)
In its final written decisions, the PTAB found a number of Koss patent claims invalid and Koss appealed to the Federal Circuit. In the end, though the appellate panel found the appeals moot because all the claims had been invalidated in parallel district court litigation. Although the prior litigation involved a different party (Plantronics), Bose was able to take advantage of that invalidation decision under the doctrine of non-mutual collateral estoppel established by the Supreme Court in Blonder-Tongue Lab’ys, Inc. v. Univ. of Ill. Found., 402 U.S. 313 (1971).
Koss attempted a clever pleading trick of filing an amended complaint and then dismissing the case – arguing that rendered the invalidity decision on the prior complaint non-final. But, the Federal Circuit rejected that scheme and instead applied issue preclusion to hold that the claims are fully and finally invalid.
The patents at issue in this case were U.S. Patent Nos. 10,368,155 (‘155 patent), 10,469,934 (‘934 patent), and 10,206,025 (‘025 patent), all assigned to Koss. These patents relate to wireless earphone technology using Bluetooth.