The Federal Circuit’s holding in United Servs. Auto. Ass’n v. PNC Bank N.A., No. 2023-2171, 2025 WL 339662 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 30, 2025) reversed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) decision finding no motivation to combine....more
The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Palo Alto Networks, Inc. v. Centripetal Networks, LLC, No. 2023-1636, 2024 WL 5114204 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 16, 2024) concerns an obviousness determination based on a motivation to combine....more
CloudofChange, LLC v. NCR Corp., Appeal No. 2023-1111 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 18, 2024) In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit addressed the question of divided infringement in the context of system claims. In its...more
In Virtek Visions international ULC v. Assembly Guidance Systems, Inc., DBA Aligned Vision Nos. 2022-1998, 2022-2022 (Fed Cir. Mar. 27, 2024), the Federal Circuit reviewed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s findings...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness decision, finding that disclosure in the prior art of all recited claim elements across multiple references, without more,...more
In Elekta Limited v. Zap Surgical Systems, Inc., No. 21-1985 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 21, 2023), the case addresses the interplay between findings related to motivation to combine and reasonable expectation of success in determining...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board non-obviousness decision, finding that the context of the proposed combination of prior art in the Board’s obviousness inquiry...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (Board) finding that proposed amendments made during an inter partes review (IPR) are valid and proper despite the inclusion of...more
In a recent opinion by the Federal Circuit, Auris Health, Inc. v Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc., Case 2021-1732, the panel split on the weight of general industry skepticism in an obviousness analysis and split on...more
The PTAB Strategies and Insights newsletter provides timely updates and insights into how best to handle proceedings at the USPTO. It is designed to increase return on investment for all stakeholders looking at the entire...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision finding the challenged claims patentable because the Board impermissibly rested its motivation-to-combine...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Last year, the continued global COVID-19 pandemic forced American courts to largely continue the procedures set in place in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was no...more
Addressing the sufficiency of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (PTAB) justification of its inter partes review (IPR) determination, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s obviousness...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) decisions, finding that the Board erred in its construction of certain claim terms relating to an...more
Addressing whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in finding that a dependent claim was valid despite the patent owner’s lack of validity arguments beyond those...more
The America Invents Act (“AIA”), signed into law in 2011, introduced inter partes review (“IPR”), which allows parties to challenge the validity of patent claims in proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a finding of obviousness by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), concluding that the finding was based on a reference that was included only in a non-instituted...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding regarding motivation to combine based only on conclusory expert testimony was not supported by substantial...more
FOX FACTORY, INC. v. SRAM, LLC - Before Prost, Wallach, and Hughes. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Summary: When a commercial product contains unclaimed features, a presumption of nexus between...more
In a recent precedential decision, TQ Delta, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed a pair of USPTO inter partes review proceedings that invalidated all claims of two related U.S. patents because “the...more
IN RE: IPR LICENSING, INC., - Before O’Malley, Newman, and Taranto. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: Establishing a motivation to combine two references for an obviousness determination in an IPR...more
On appeal from a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding of non-obviousness, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that a petitioner could not raise an “entirely new rationale” for combining two...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) non-obviousness determination because substantial evidence supported the PTAB’s finding that a person of skill in the art would...more
The Federal Circuit has affirmed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding nonobvious the claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,772,209 (the “’209 Patent”), which are directed to a method of treating cancer. The claims...more
PTAB May Invalidate Claims on Reconsideration Based on Grounds Raised in the Institution Decision that Were Not Originally Instituted - In AC Technologies S.A., V. Amazon.Com, Inc., Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., Appeal No....more