In
Cheetah Omni v. AT&T Services, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a decision that
stresses the importance of meticulously drafting license
agreements.
In February, the court denied an attempt by Cheetah, an optical
products developer, to revive its patent infringement suit against
AT&T and Ciena Communications, ruling that the defendants were
impliedly licensed under the patent-in-suit, U.S. Patent 7,522,836.
In an earlier suit, Cheetah had asserted a separate patent, U.S.
Patent 7,339,714, against Ciena. That suit was settled with
Cheetah's grant of an irrevocable license to Ciena and its
affiliates to "Licensed Patents" which, as defined,
included the '714 patent and all parents and related patents.
Notably, the '714 patent is a continuation-in-part of U.S.
Patent 6,943,925, which, as the grandparent of the '714 patent,
is an expressly licensed patent under the agreement; the at-issue
'836 patent is a continuation of a
