Our Patent Case Summaries provide a weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Global Tubing LLC v. Tenaris Coiled Tubes LLC, et al.
Nos. 2023-1882, -1883 (Fed. Cir. (S.D. Tex.) Feb. 26, 2026). Opinion by Stark, joined by Taranto and Hughes.
Tenaris owns several patents directed to quenched-and-tempered coiled tubing products. Global Tubing sued Tenaris seeking a declaratory judgment that its own coiled tubing product does not infringe the Tenaris patents.
Before the litigation, Tenaris possessed documents relating to a coiled tubing product called CYMAX. These “CYMAX Documents” included technical specifications for a product whose carbon range overlapped with the carbon range later claimed by Tenaris in its patents. Tenaris did not submit the CYMAX Documents to the Patent Office during prosecution.
During the litigation, Tenaris produced documents between its counsel and an inventor (Dr. Valdez) during prosecution where the inventor had commented, in reference to the CYMAX Documents, “I am not sure it is a good idea to disclose this document.”
Global Tubing then asserted claims for inequitable conduct and Walker Process fraud, seeking to hold Tenaris liable for attempting to use fraudulently obtained patents to monopolize the market. The district court granted summary judgment of inequitable conduct to Global Tubing and granted summary judgment of no liability for Walker Process fraud to Tenaris. Tenaris appealed, and Global Tubing cross-appealed.
The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded, concluding that genuine disputes of material fact preclude summary judgment in both instances.
First, summary judgment of inequitable conduct was improper. The Federal Circuit ruled that “the district court erred because it failed to consider the evidence of Dr. Valdez’s intent in the light most favorable to Tenaris, the nonmoving party. The court neglected to draw all reasonable inferences from the record in favor of Tenaris.” In particular, the Federal Circuit summarized testimony by Dr. Valdez that raised disputed issues of material fact because his testimony “may mean Dr. Valdez was genuinely confused about what the CYMAX Documents show,” and because he claimed that prior art disclosed to the Patent Office already “discloses CYMAX.”
In addition, the Federal Circuit ruled that whether the CYMAX Documents were cumulative of references disclosed to the Patent Office “presents another genuine dispute of material fact and, hence, another reason summary judgment should not have been granted.”
Next, as to Global Tuning’s cross-appeal, the Federal Circuit ruled that genuine disputes of material fact “render summary judgment for Tenaris of no Walker Process fraud improper.” For example, a threshold issue in a monopolization claim is identifying the relevant market, and here the parties presented “competing evidence as to the relevant product and geographic market.” Also, “a reasonable factfinder, taking the record evidence in the light most favorable to Global Tubing as the non-movant, could find that Tenaris threatened and intended to sue Global Tubing on its patents, and could further find that those patent rights were obtained by committing fraud on the PTO.”
Curium US LLC v. Universität Heidelberg & the European Atomic Energy Community
No. IPR 2025-01582 (PTAB Feb. 25, 2026) (designated informative on Feb. 25, 2026). Order by Squires.
Curium filed an IPR petition identifying only itself as the real party-in-interest (RPI), and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a Notice of Filing Date Accorded. The Patent Owner then filed a request for discretionary denial, arguing that Curium’s parent companies should have been listed as RPIs because they own and control Curium. Curium responded that they are not RPIs but nonetheless filed an updated mandatory notice identifying the parent companies “to moot this issue.”
The Board accepted the updated mandatory notice and determined that Curium’s “amendment of its RPI disclosures results in according the Petition a new filing date”—the filing date of the updated mandatory notice. And because the new filing date “does not implicate a time-bar under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) that requires terminating the proceeding,” the Board allowed the IPR to proceed with all future deadlines being “based on the new filing date accorded.”