Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- an article about the Federal Circuit deciding the Patent Trial and Appeal Board “must take a second look at a video-streaming technology patent challenged by Netflix Inc. and Hulu LLC”;
- a blog post about the potential effects of an upcoming Supreme Court case on patents; and
- another article about a Federal Circuit decision affirming claim construction rulings by the Eastern District of Texas.
Kelcee Griffis wrote an article for Bloomberg Law about the Federal Circuit deciding the Patent Trial and Appeal Board “must take a second look at a video-streaming technology patent challenged by Netflix Inc. and Hulu LLC.” Griffis reported how the Federal Circuit determined “‘the Board legally erred in its obviousness analysis’” since the Board “improperly combined and emphasized certain parts of the asserted references.” Griffis highlighted how “DivX originally sued Netflix and Hulu in California federal court, alleging that the companies ‘video streaming success depends upon the technical innovations developed and patented by DivX.’”
Gene Quinn authored a blog post for IPWatchdog about how “[t]he United States Supreme Court is soon poised to decide the fate of the enablement requirement,” which he says could “strike a deathblow to the biopharmaceutical industry” by “making all patents harder to get and easier to challenge.” Quinn argued that, “since the Supreme Court issued its decision in eBay v. MercExchange, virtually every decision of consequence to the patent system has made patent rights weaker and patents themselves easier to successfully challenge.” Quinn explained how in his view “[t]he result is broad claims are held invalid, with only narrow claims being upheld, which will necessarily result in only small, incremental innovation.”
Ryan Davis wrote an article about a Federal Circuit decision affirming “claim construction rulings made by Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap that resulted in LED display maker Absen Inc. being cleared of infringing three patents owned by Ultravision Technologies LLC.” Davis reported how “Ultravision argued on appeal that Judge Gilstrap incorrectly construed two key terms used in the patents” and as a result “a jury verdict in favor of Absen on one patent and a stipulated judgment of non-infringement on two others should therefore be overturned.” Davis explained, however, that the Federal Circuit rejected Ultravision’s argument “‘because the district court correctly construed both claim terms.’”