Federal Circuit

Subscribe to Federal Circuit via RSS

In the recent opinion in Unwired Planet, LLC v. Google Inc., the Federal Circuit has limited the reach of covered business method (CBM) reviews.  The Board had framed its CBM eligibility standard as asking “whether the patent claims activities that are financial in nature, incidental to a financial activity, or complementary to a financial…

In Perfect Surgical Techniques, Inc. v. Olympus America, Inc., Olympus Medical Systems Corp., IPR2014-00233 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 15, 2016) (Judges Moore, Schall, and O’Malley), the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the Board’s decision invalidating certain claims of U.S. Patent 6,030,384 (“’384 patent”).  The Board’s decision was based on prior art under pre-AIA §102(a).  This…

In Medtronic, Inc. v. Robert Bosch Healthcare Systems, Inc., the Federal Circuit considered the impact of Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, 136 S. Ct. 2131 (2016) on the scope of appellate review of a PTAB decision to vacate an inter partes review institution decision and terminate the proceeding  and concluded there…

In Husky Injection Molding v. Athena Automation, the Federal Circuit has again refused to review a decision underlying the Board’s institution decision, in this case, whether the Petitioner was barred from filing an inter partes review petition based on assignor estoppel.  As in Achates, the court concludes that it lacks jurisdiction to conduct…

In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sprint Communication Co. LP, No. 2016-1013 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 23, 2016), the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s determination that certain claims were indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 2 due to the phrase “processing system.”  Id. at 3.  The majority did so in a rather unique way,…

An increasing number of cases demonstrate the challenges that the Federal Circuit and parties face when dealing with standing questions in appeals from administrative agencies.  These challenges only emphasize the growing need for a change in the Court’s rules of procedure.

Standing in cases from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) has become a…

The recent decision in Wi-Fi One v. Broadcom, has presented an interesting opportunity for the Federal Circuit to reconsider its jurisprudence on the reviewability of the PTO’s institution decision post-Cuozzo and in particular the application of the time bar set forth in 35 U.S.C. § 315(b).  The language of 35 U.S.C. § 315(b)…

The question of whether PTAB trials are litigation-like or examination-like (or some hybrid of the two) has been implicated on several occasions.  The most recent one is in the In re Aqua en banc hearing Order.  No. 2015-1177 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 12, 2012).  While the PTAB has repeatedly stated it does not examine proposed amended…