This morning the Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential opinion addressing two consolidated appeals from judgments of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The court also issued two Rule 36 judgments in cases appealed from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Here is the introduction to the opinion and links to the Rule 36 judgments.
Caris MPI, Inc. v. Foundation Medicine, Inc. (Nonprecedential)
In two decisions, the United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) held that claims 1–11 and 13–24 of the ’660 patent would have been obvious over prior art at the time the invention was made but that FMI failed to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that claim 12 would have been obvious.
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Caris appeals (the 2020-1886 appeal) the Board’s holding that claims 1–11 and 13–24 would have been obvious and FMI cross-appeals the Board’s holding that it failed to demonstrate unpatentability of claim 12.
In three decisions, the Board held that claims 1– 14 of each of the ’350, ’193, and ’365 patents would have been obvious over prior art at the time the invention was made.
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Caris appeals (the 2020-1887 appeal).
We consolidated the two appeals for briefing and argument and decide both of them in this opinion. For the reasons detailed below, we affirm the 2020-1887 appeal, and affirm-in-part, vacate-in-part, and remand the 2020-1886 appeal to the Board for further proceedings.