Walkie Talkie Claim against Sprint Upheld
The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit sent back to a district court a patent infringement complaint against Sprint Nextel by Alfred McZeal and his business, International Walkie Talkie. The court vacated and remanded for further proceeding an order by the U.S. District Court for southern Texas dismissing McZeal’s complaint for failure to state a claim. McZeal “met the low bar for pro se litigants to avoid dismissal,” Judge Glenn Archer wrote in the majority opinion. Judge Timothy Dyk dissented in part. Sprint didn’t comment by our deadline.
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McZeal’s 95-page, 24-count suit alleged that Sprint infringed his International Walkie Talkie service mark and that Sprint’s Motorola i930 cellphone infringed one of his patents. McZeal sought a temporary restraining order, preliminary and permanent injunction and an expedited hearing. McZeal got his fast hearing, but the court dismissed the complaint, explaining “it is irreparable because the facts -- there are no missing facts. There just aren’t any facts.”
“McZeal’s complaint certainly does not contain enough facts for the temporary restraining order and injunctions that he sought,” and the court properly denied those requests, Archer said. “However, the district court should not have dismissed McZeal’s entire complaint.” McZeal stated all the facts he could reasonably find for his patent infringement claim, Archer said. “At this stage in the litigation, all McZeal had access to is Sprint Nextel’s public statements and advertisements,” he said. “The specifics of how Sprint Nextel’s purportedly infringing device works is something to be determined through discovery.” The Federal Circuit also disagreed with the lower court’s finding that McZeal’s trademark was too generic to be valid. “This finding on its face is insufficient because whether a term is generic is a question of fact,” Archer said.
Though the court ruled in McZeal’s favor, it does “not condone his method of pleading,” Archer said. “McZeal is no stranger to legal proceedings, having filed numerous complaints in the past and having many dismissed for failure to state a claim.” Most of McZeal’s “voluminous complaint” was “baseless and frivolous,” he added. But the remand will give the lower court the opportunity to force McZeal to “delineate” his infringement claims and supporting evidence, he said. Sprint’s arguments “can now more appropriately be made to the district court,” he added.
Judge Dyk disputed the outcome. “The majority’s decision in this respect is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v Twombly,” he said. “McZeal’s complaint utterly fails to provide any meaningful notice as to how Sprint has infringed the claims under the doctrine of equivalents.”