District Court Failed to Follow Mandate

Central Admixture Pharmacy Services, Inc. v. Advanced Cardiac Solutions, P.C. [2007-1575] (June 16, 2008) [GAJARSA, Schall, Clevenger] NON-PRECEDENTIAL The Federal Circuit reversed the judgment dismissing the case and remand to the district court for adjudication of CAPS’s patent infringement claim.
BRIEF: Plaintiff CAPS stipulated that if its Certificate of Correction was held valid it did not intend to pursue their claim for damages against Defendants for infringement of the patent for any sales of the accused solutions made prior to issuance of the Certificate of Correction. Thereafter the district court ruled that the Certificate was valid, and entered a Pretrial Order stating that Plaintiffs have withdrawn their claim that Defendants infringe the patent claims prior to issuance of the Certificate. The district court then entered summary judgment for CAPS against ACS on the issue of infringement of the post-COC claims.
However after the Certificate was held invalid on appeal, the district court still entered judgment against plaintiff on its infringement claim based on its pretrial order that plaintiff’s had withdrawn its infringement claim.
The Federal Circuit tersely reversed the district court’s action as not in compliance with its mandate: “Our decision and mandate were clear: on remand, the district court was to decide the merits of CAPS’s infringement claim under the pre-COC claims. The district court was not at liberty to ‘determine’ the issue on procedural grounds, as it did. CAPS was entitled to pursue its pre-COC infringement claim. We explicitly said so in three places in our opinion, and to boot we amplified our order in a long footnote enumerating issues related to CAPS’s infringement claim that remained for decision on remand.