In Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Acceleron, L.L.C., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of the case for lack of declaratory judgment jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202. Acceleron, a patent holding company, had contacted Hewlett-Packard to call attention to U.S. Patent No. 6,948,021 (“the ’021 patent”). After receiving two letters from Acceleron, HP filed for declaratory judgment. The district court granted Acceleron’s motion to dismiss for lack of declaratory judgment jurisdiction. The CAFC reversed, noting that while a party’s identification of a patent it owns and the plaintiff’s product line is not enough by itself to give rise to declaratory judgment jurisdiction, under the totality of the circumstances, including Acceleron’s position as a patent holding company, it was not unreasonable for HP to interpret Acceleron’s letters as an implicit assertion of its rights in the ’021 patent. Continue Reading