Foley Wins ITC Investigation

Foley represented 18 of 22 respondents in a three patent ITC investigation concerning machine vision software filed by Cognex Corporation. The ITC investigation was Machine Vision Software, Machine Vision Systems, and Products Containing Same, Inv. No. 337-TA-680. Cognex had initially sued MVTec on nine patents in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, all relating to machine vision and, in particular, methods for finding objects in digital images. After MVTec threw all of the patents into reexamination, Cognex filed an ITC action on three of the nine patents. Cognex was forced to withdraw its claims on one of those patents during discovery, and the remaining two went to trial before Judge Charneski at the ITC. Following eight days of trial testimony, and extensive post-trial briefing, Judge Charneski found that no claims were infringed and that all of the asserted claims were invalid. In December 2013, the Federal Circuit affirmed the ITC’s finding of no infringement of the one surviving patent (the other having been invalidated by Foley in the PTO while the appeal was pending), and not reaching the invalidity findings, which had become moot due the non-infringement.