Federal Circuit Enforces Finality And Timeliness Rules

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit continues to strictly enforce rules of finality and timeliness, ordering that a final judgment must be rendered on all claims for relief before a party seeks to appeal and a notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days after judgment is entered or be dismissed as untimely. Whirlpool Corp. v. LG Electronics, Inc., Case No. 07-1088 (Fed. Cir., Mar. 1, 2007) (Radar, J.); Baychar, Inc. v. Salomon North America, Inc., Case No. 07-1105 (Fed. Cir., Mar. 1, 2007) (Radar, J.).

In Whirlpool, the defendant-appellee LG Electronics moved to dismiss an appeal filed by Whirlpool Corp. Whirlpool, the plaintiff-appellant, sued LG for infringement of two patents. LG filed counterclaims seeking declaratory judgments of non-infringement of both patents, declaratory judgments of invalidity of both patents on various grounds and a declaratory judgment of unenforceability of one of the patents. Several motions for summary judgment were filed, but LG did