by Ben Vernia | July 14th, 2010
In a July 8 ruling in Simonian v. Hunter Fan Co., a false patent case, District Judge Amy J. St. Eve of the Northern District of Illinois rejected a defendant’s argument that first-to-file jurisdictional bar of the False Claims Act, 31 USC 3730(b)(5), should be applied to the case, brought under 35 USC 292.
Judge St. Eve reasoned that the FCA’s first-to-file rule’s own language (i.e., “when a person brings an action under this subsection”) limited its application to cases brought under the qui tam provision of the FCA, and that the defendant offered no authority for extending it to false patent actions.
