Posts Tagged: "Judge Evan Wallach"

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.

Supreme Court Refuses Another 101 Patent Eligibility Appeal

REAL argued in its petition that step two of the Alice test used to determine invalidity under Section 101 requires questions of fact that were never asked by the lower court. To invalidate without asking those questions contradicts the Federal Circuit’s recent holdings in Berkheimer v. HP and Aatrix Software v. Green Shades Software. REAL’s appeal to the Federal Circuit was decided by a panel including Circuit Judges Alan Lourie, Evan Wallach and Kara Stoll, a trio where the majority has held that step two of Alice is a pure question of law, which is a misapplication of the Alice standard. REAL further contended that both the district court and the Federal Circuit disregarded the factual record in their Alice analysis; that the patents-in-suit claim patentable improvements to computer user interface technology; and that the district court found that there were material facts in dispute while also finding that the claims were well-understood, routine and conventional.

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The Federal Circuit recently issued a nonprecedential decision in BASF Corporation v. Enthone, Inc. which vacated an earlier decision stemming from an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding at the Patent Trial and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.

Federal Circuit: Attorneys Not Liable for Attorney’s Fees Where Law is Unsettled

A claim is entirely without color when it lacks any legal or factual basis.  Because of the relative paucity of § 101 cases between Alice and AlphaCap’s complaint, the law was unsettled.  The Federal Circuit noted that when the applicable law is unsettled, attorneys may not be sanctioned merely for making reasonable arguments for interpreting the law.  Further, the court found that Gutride presented a colorable argument that the claims were analogous to those in DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com L.P., and therefore patent eligible under § 101.