September 2013

Spotlight Info

In Aevoe Corp. v. AE Tech Co., No. 12-1422 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 29, 2013), the Federal Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because the district court merely clarified the scope of the original injunction, and there was no modification that substantially changed the legal relationship between the parties.  The district court entered a preliminary injunction and twice amended it before the accused infringer, AE Tech Co., Ltd. (“AE Tech”), appealed.  Because AE Tech’s appeal was not timely filed after the original injunction was entered, the Federal Circuit noted the operative question was whether the changes to the injunction amounted to a sufficient modification to reset the time for appeal.  Because the legal relationship between the parties was in no way altered by the district court’s changes to the injunction language, the Court concluded that the district court never modified the injunction such that it would reset AE Tech’s time to appeal.  Therefore, AE Tech’s appeal was untimely.  See this month’s edition of Last Month at the Federal Circuit for a full summary of this decision.