Imagine That IP Law Blog

Earlier this week, the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in Sequoia Technology LLC v. Dell Inc. et al. that underscores the importance of intrinsic evidence when construing claim language in a District Court litigation. Of particular importance are the Court’s statements regarding the patent specification’s provision of an “express purpose of the invention” and a “preferred embodiment,” as well as the Court’s reliance on statements made by the Patent Owner in its pre-institution filings and on a document cited in an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) during ... Read More ›

Earlier this week, in Intel Corporation v. Pact Xpp Schweiz Ag, the Federal Circuit reversed a final written decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that a processor claim was valid as being non-obvious over a combination of cited references because the Petitioner’s argument under the “known technique” test was found to be lacking. In particular, the PTAB held, and the Federal Circuit reversed, that the “known technique” test requires that the proposed combination would result in an improvement over the base reference. This appears to be in conflict with how ... Read More ›

On March 20, 2019, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that may bring some long-awaited good news for wireless patent holders. In particular, in SRI Int’l, Inc. v. Cisco Sys., the Federal Circuit found methods for improving security of a computer communication network to be patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C § 101. SRI Int’l, Inc. v. Cisco Sys. Inc., No. 2017-2223, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 8249, *1, *4 (Fed. Cir. 2019). This news comes in the wake of Federal Circuit decisions in 2016 and 2018, respectively, that found methods of 3G authentication and ... Read More ›