Opinions — Wednesday, April 29, 2026

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Adidas's motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 60(b)(2) and (b)(3) following a jury verdict in favor of Thom Browne on Adidas's trademark infringement, dilution, and unfair competition claims regarding Thom Browne's Four-Bar Signature and Grosgrain marks against Adidas's Three-Stripe Mark. After the jury found no liability and an initial appeal affirmed that verdict, Adidas discovered that Thom Browne had negligently failed to produce several internal emails during discovery in which Thom Browne employees discussed avoiding confusion with Adidas's marks. The court held that Adidas failed to establish entitlement to a new trial under Rule 60(b)(2) because the newly discovered emails probably would not have changed the verdict, as they did not directly address the Polaroid likelihood-of-confusion factors, concerned different product categories (formalwear rather than the activewear at issue), and reflected subjective opinions rather than evidence of actual consumer confusion—evidence of which the jury had already rejected at trial. The court further held that Rule 60(b)(3) relief was unavailable because "misconduct" requires more than mere negligence, and Thom Browne's discovery failure was only negligent.

The decision's doctrinal significance lies in the Second Circuit's first articulation of the mental state required for "misconduct" under Rule 60(b)(3), holding that merely negligent discovery violations—even concerning highly relevant evidence—do not constitute misconduct justifying vacation of a final judgment. The court reasoned from text, context (particularly Rule 37's requirement of intent for the most severe discovery sanctions), the severity of the remedy (vacating a jury verdict), and historical evidence that "misconduct" must be read consistently with "fraud" and "misrepresentation" to require heightened culpability beyond ordinary negligence. Although the court found that defense counsel's failure to review documents tagged "needs further review" was negligent because the emails were obviously relevant and counsel offered no adequate explanation for missing them, it declined to find gross negligence or recklessness where counsel had implemented quality-control procedures and took "widely-recognized steps" in document review, even if execution was flawed. The court reserved the question of what specific level of culpability (gross negligence, recklessness, or intent) would suffice for Rule 60(b)(3) relief, establishing only that ordinary negligence does not.

Federal Express Corporation v. Qualcomm Incorporated involves an inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 9,182,231, which covers a hierarchical sensor network for monitoring packages. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found claims 1-15 and 26-30 unpatentable as obvious over prior art references Lau and Benson. The Federal Circuit affirmed as to claim 26 but vacated and remanded as to claims 9 and 23-25, finding the Board failed to address a key argument FedEx raised regarding those claims.

The court's claim construction analysis centered on two limitations in claim 26: "short range communication path" and "unable to directly communicate with the server." Applying ordinary claim construction principles, the court held that "short range" is properly understood as a relative term requiring only that the path be shorter than the claimed "longer range communication path," rejecting FedEx's argument that the specification's reference to WLAN as "medium range" constituted a clear disavowal excluding WLAN from the scope of "short range." The court similarly rejected FedEx's narrow construction of "unable to" as requiring permanent physical incapacity, holding instead that the term encompasses devices presently unable to communicate but potentially capable if reprogrammed. The court found the specification used "not operative to" and "unable to" interchangeably, and that importing a "permanent physical incapacity" requirement would improperly narrow the claim beyond its plain meaning.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Western District of Texas's dismissal of RFC Lenders of Texas's infringement suit against Smart Chemical Solutions on Section 101 grounds. The '471 patent relates to monitoring vehicles for unauthorized usage by detecting movement, transmitting operator identification information to a control center, detecting the presence of landmarks (such as RFID tags at parking stalls), and transmitting landmark data. The district court found all claims ineligible under the two-step Alice framework, and denied RFC leave to amend as futile.

The court's analysis highlights the interplay between claim language generality and specification admissions at both Alice steps. At step one, the court found the claims directed to the abstract idea of "detecting, transmitting, and processing data to monitor vehicles" because they invoked only generic computing functions in result-oriented language without meaningful implementation detail. At step two, the court credited the specification's acknowledgment that the claimed methods could be implemented using conventional components, rejecting RFC's conclusory amended allegations that the steps were not well-understood or routine—an application of the principle that conclusory allegations contradicted by the specification need not be accepted as true even on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. The court also found RFC forfeited arguments raised for the first time on appeal, including that certain dependent claims were not representative and that the invention related to vehicle "control" rather than monitoring.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment of noninfringement in favor of Cisco Systems on three Centripetal Networks patents relating to network security and packet filtering. The case returned to the district court after this court previously vacated an infringement finding due to the original judge's failure to recuse despite his wife's ownership of Cisco stock, remanding under Rule 63 for de novo consideration by a new judge. On remand, the new judge found noninfringement as to all three patents based on claim construction and factual findings regarding the accused products' operation.

The court's analysis of the '193 patent turned on whether the claim term "particular type of data transfer" required two-stage filtering where the second stage filters by method or type of communication rather than merely by source and destination. Reviewing claim construction de novo, the court held that the specification's express description of a "two-stage" filtering process and the prosecution history before the PTO established that stage-one filtering addresses whether communication is permitted between network resources (including source and destination analysis), while stage-two filtering addresses the specific method or type of communication. Because Cisco's quarantine procedure filtered only by source and destination, it performed only first-stage filtering and did not infringe claims requiring the second filtering stage.