On December 15, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision that a computerized gaming patent owned by John Stephenson, allegedly a competitor of Game Show Network (GSN), is invalid.
In 2011, Stephenson, the founder of Multimedia Games Inc., sued GSN for infringement of a patent directed to computer gaming tournaments. GSN filed an IPR petition in 2013, and the litigation was stayed pending the Board’s review of the asserted patent. In its final written decision last year, the Board found that all 19 claims of Stephenson’s patent were unpatentable. The Knobbe Martens team convinced the Board that all of the patent's claims were anticipated or obvious in view of a prior art patent application.
Knobbe Martens Partner Brent Babcock, Game Show Network’s lead IPR and appellate attorney on the case, stated: "We are pleased that both the PTAB and the Federal Circuit have agreed with our assessment, finding Stephenson's asserted patent to be unpatentable."
