Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit. Highlights include two new petitions for rehearing in patent cases presenting questions related to patent eligibility and claim construction. Here are the details.
New Petitions
In Plotagraph, Inc. v. Lightricks, Ltd., Plotagraph asks the Federal Circuit to review “whether patent prosecution history and claim interpretation have any effect upon how a claim is viewed under step one of the patent eligibility test set forth in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014).”
In Apple Inc. v. Masimo Corporation, Apple asks the Federal Circuit to review “[w]hether a patent limitation should be given its plain and ordinary meaning, when (a) the alternative, narrower construction adopted by the lower tribunal renders claim language superfluous and (b) the specification mentions the term only once—in the context of a preferred embodiment—and instructs that the embodiments are examples that ‘are not to limit the scope of the claims.'”