The Federal Circuit recently issued a decision in In re Marco Guldenaar Holding B.V., ruling the claims at issue were directed to the abstract idea of rules for playing a dice game. Finding that the recited elements did not amount to significantly more than that abstract idea itself, the court found the claims ineligible for patent protection.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Upholds Patent Ineligibility of Dice Game
In MaxLinear Inc. v. CF Crespe LLC the Federal Circuit ruled that the PTAB did not address arguments concerning patentability of certain dependent claims of the patent at issue separate from the corresponding independent claims, and vacated and remanded the PTAB’s final written decision.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Remands PTAB Decision to Assess Dependent Claim Patentability
In a split opinion in Homeland Housewares, LLC v. Whirlpool Corporation, the Federal Circuit has again overturned a final written decision issued by the PTAB determining that challenged claims in an IPR were not unpatentable, a development that should at least cast doubt on the validity of patents that survive challenges at the PTAB.
Homeland initially petitioned the PTAB for an inter partes review of all claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,581,688 (“the ’688 patent”), assigned to Whirlpool, arguing that the claims were invalid as anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 6,609,821 (“the ’821 patent”).
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Overturns PTAB’s Finding of Patent Validity
In the latest development in the ongoing patent battle between Google and SimpleAir Inc., a Federal Circuit panel agreed with SimpleAir that Google waived a claim construction it asserted on appeal because Google had failed to argue that construction before the PTAB.
SimpleAir originally asserted a series of patents against Google, including U.S. Patent No. 8,601,154 (“the ’154 patent”) directed to a data communication system connecting on-line networks with on-line and off-line computers. Google challenged the validity of the ’154 patent in an IPR. The PTAB determined the challenged claims of the ’154 patent were not invalid, concluding that Google failed to identify in the prior art “a central broadcast server,” recited in the challenged claims. Google appealed the PTAB’s final written decision, and argued that the PTAB erred in its interpretation of this limitation.
Continue Reading Failing to Articulate Desired Claim Construction Before PTAB May Lead to Waiver
In Unwired Planet, LLC v. Google Inc., the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s IPR decision that the challenged claims are invalid as obvious and dismissed the PTAB’s CBM review as moot.
Petitioner Google filed IPR and CBM petitions challenging claims 1-6 of U.S. Patent No. 7,024,205 (“the ’205 patent”) owned by Unwired Planet, LLC. The ’205 patent describes a system and method for providing wireless network subscribers with prioritized search results based on the location of the mobile device. Claim 1 is the sole independent claim of the ’205 patent and recites “farther-over-nearer ordering” in the context of wireless location-based services. We previously discussed a related CBM review between the same parties.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Affirms Cancellation of Claims Based on Analogous Art
An updated discussion of this issue is available here: Supreme Court Decides that IPR Final Decisions Must Address All Challenged Claims
The Federal Circuit recently denied a petition for rehearing en banc, effectively reiterating that the PTAB may, in its sole discretion, choose to institute an IPR proceeding on some, but not all, of the patent claims challenged in an IPR petition. The rehearing petition sought the full court’s review of a split three-judge panel decision in SAS Institute, Inc. v. Complementsoft, LLC, Nos. 2015-1346, -1347 (Fed. Cir. Jun. 10, 2016), that applied Synopsys, Inc. v. Mentor Graphics Corp., 814 F.3d 1309 (Fed. Cir. 2016), to conclude that there is no statutory requirement that a PTAB final written decision address every claim raised in an IPR petition.
Continue Reading PTAB May Institute an IPR Proceeding on a Subset of Challenged Claims