Posts Tagged: "Judge Richard Taranto"

Federal Circuit Holds a ‘Similar Enough’ Claim Construction Doesn’t Violate the APA

In Hamilton Beach Brands v. F’Real Foods, the Federal Circuit found that under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s adopted claim construction in an IPR need not be identical to a construction proposed by a party so long as the construction is “similar enough” to provide notice for the parties to argue for or against the construction.

Federal Circuit Vacates PTAB Decision That Video Messaging Patent Claims Were Nonobvious

The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Timothy Dyk, Evan Wallach and Richard Taranto determined that the PTAB’s decision to uphold patent claims challenged by WhatsApp as nonobvious wasn’t supported by substantial evidence and that the PTAB didn’t properly consider expert testimony provided by WhatsApp… Here the prior art references that supplied all of the claim limitations and the Federal Circuit found that testimony from expert witnesses on both sides supported the idea that video and multimedia content was better at conveying more powerful messages than text or still photos.

Federal Circuit Vacates PTAB’s Decision to Uphold Enthone Patent

The Federal Circuit recently issued a nonprecedential decision in BASF Corporation v. Enthone, Inc. which vacated an earlier decision stemming from an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) which had upheld a patent owned by Enthone as valid over an obviousness challenge asserted by BASF. The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Timothy Dyk, Evan Wallach and Richard Taranto remanded the case to the PTAB after holding that certain findings made by the PTAB were inadequately supported or explained.

Rule 36 Affirmances at the Federal Circuit – Week of October 8, 2018

During the week of October 8, 2018,  there were five cases involving patents that were decided without an opinion as a result of Rule 36 affirmances at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Three of those cases were issued by panels including Chief Judge Sharon Prost. In two cases, the Federal Circuit upheld district court invalidations of asserted patents whereas another two affirmed rejections of applicants claims by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The last case was a summary affirmance of a victory by German drugmaker Erfindergemeinschaft UroPep over Eli Lilly in the Eastern District of Texas.

To invalidate method claims a challenger must show more than the prior art is ‘capable of’ performing the claimed limitations

To invalidate method claims, a challenger must show more than that the prior art is “capable of” performing the claimed limitations—the challenger should also show that “a person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to operate [the prior art device] in a manner that satisfied the [claimed] limitation.”