U.S. Court of Appeals Archives

Feb 2, 2017

SGR Team Wins Federal Circuit Appeal for Patent Interference

On Friday, an SGR team cemented a victory on behalf of its client Yang when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in its favor in an appeal brought by Chan related to a patent interference proceeding (Interference No. 106,025 (the ʼ025 interference)) (2016-1214). The Court’s ruling affirmed the SGR team’s previous success before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which resulted in judgment against Chan and cancellation of a number of claims of Chan’s U.S. Patent No. 8,614,197 (Chan’s ʼ197 patent). The issues on appeal related to (a) whether the PTAB correctly declared an interference-in-fact… Read more

Jul 18, 2016

U.S. EPA Sued Over Denial of New Power Plant Rule Reconsideration

On July 1, nearly half of the States filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the U.S. EPA’s denial of their petition to rehear the new power plant rule regulating carbon dioxide emissions. The challenge is expected to be consolidated with ongoing litigation over the EPA’s new source performance standards for new power plants (RIN:2060-AQ91). The lawsuit was filed in response to the EPA’s, May 6, denial of five petitions seeking reconsideration of various aspects of the new performance standard for power plants. In its denial, the EPA asserted that carbon capture… Read more

Apr 19, 2016

Former EPA Administrators Defend Clean Power Plan

The U.S. EPA contends that shifting electricity generation away from coal-fired utilities as required by the Clean Power Plan (the “CPP”) constitutes a permissible system of emission reduction under the Clean Air Act (the “Act”). Two former EPA administrators have expressed support for this interpretation, asserting that the Act was broadly worded to reflect Congress’s intent to allow EPA the flexibility to address emerging air pollution problems without having to seek revisions to the Act itself. The current EPA administration has determined that the Act’s requirement that EPA determine the “best system” for cutting carbon dioxide emissions is broad enough… Read more

Oct 27, 2015

EPA Sued Again Over Clean Power Plan Rule

On Friday twenty-four states, led by West Virginia’s Republican Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, and Murray Energy Corp. filed two petitions against the Environmental Protection Agency and its Administrator, Regina McCarthy, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit seeking judicial review and an immediate stop to enforcement of the final rule implementing the Clean Power Plan, also known as Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. The Plan requires states to substantially reduce carbon emissions from power plants running on fossil fuels by 2030. The overall projection for reduced emissions is 32% over 2005 levels, with states assigned… Read more