Posts Tagged: "Elbit Systems"

CAFC says PTAB Entitled to Weigh the Credibility of Experts, Ignore Attorney Argument

Elbit’s expert argued that the asserted claims were obvious because the two-step and three-step methods are “mathematically equivalent” in that the three-step method simply reorders steps employed in the prior art without producing a new or unexpected result. The Federal Circuit disagreed, finding that Thales’s expert sufficiently explained the differences between the two-step and three-step methods. The panel also agreed with the Board that Elbit’s expert’s testimony was “unsupported” and not entitled to weight because he failed to account for or address the relative angular rate signal limitation in claim 3 anywhere in his opinion.

Robert Schaffer & Joseph Robinson

February 18, 2018

Federal Circuit Upholds Thales Motion Tracking Patent Asserted against U.S. Government for Second Time

The recent Federal Circuit decision in Elbit Systems of America, LLC v. Thales Visionix, Inc. affirmed a final written decision issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which upheld some claims in an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding challenging the validity of Thales’ U.S. Patent No. 6474159, titled Motion-Tracking and issued in November 2002. The patent claims a system for tracking the motion of an object relative to a moving reference frame using a first inertial sensor mounted on the tracked object, a second inertial sensor mounted on the moving reference frame and an element that receives signals from both inertial sensors to determine an orientation of the object relative to the moving reference frame. The resulting invention enables the use of inertial head-tracking systems for platforms including flight simulators and other vehicular applications.

Steve Brachmann

February 13, 2018