This morning, the Federal Circuit released two nonprecedential opinions and one nonprecedential order. Both opinions come in patent cases, one an appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and one an appeal from a district court. The nonprecedential order is a dismissal. Here are the introductions to the opinions and a link to the dismissal.
In re Butler (Nonprecedential)
Appellants, John Robert Butler and Stuller, Inc., appeal a final written decision of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirming a patent examiner’s rejection of claims 1–15 of U.S. Patent Application No. 16/891,541 for lack of written description under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
Lambeth Magnetic Structures, LLC v. Seagate Technology (US) Holdings Inc. (Nonprecedential)
Lambeth Magnetic Structures, LLC appeals a district court judgment of noninfringement of its U.S. Patent No. 7,128,988. Lambeth argues that the district court erroneously construed the claim term “uniaxial symmetry broken structure.” Seagate Technology (US) Holdings Inc. and Seagate Technology, LLC cross-appeal, arguing that the district court erred in denying judgment as a matter of law on invalidity, because a reasonable jury could not have found the patent enabled under 35 U.S.C. § 112. We determine that the district court’s judgment of noninfringement was premised on an erroneous claim construction of the disputed claim term. We vacate the judgment of noninfringement and dismiss the cross-appeal as improper. Because we determine that the proper construction of the disputed claim term may affect the evidence and arguments presented on enablement, we remand for a new trial on both infringement and enablement under the proper construction of “uniaxial symmetry broken structure.”