En Banc Activity / Featured / Petitions
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Here is an update on recent en banc activity at the Federal Circuit in patent cases. Since our last update, one new petition for en banc rehearing was filed, raising questions related to claim construction, patent eligibility, and appellate procedure. The court also denied four petitions for en banc rehearing. Those petitions raised questions related to the presumption of validity and the written description requirement, Rule 36, attorneys’ fees, and obviousness, and claim construction. Here are the details.

En Banc Petitions

New Petition

Since our last update, one new petition for en banc rehearing has been filed in Rideshare Displays, Inc. v. Lyft, Inc. In its petition, Rideshare Displays asks the following questions:

  1. “Whether the Court may disregard key functional limitations of the claims that implement the improvement to the claimed invention over the prior art in conducting a patent eligibility analysis.”
  2. “Whether the Court may usurp the factfinder role and disregard the requirement to review the Board’s factual findings on written description for substantial evidence, and instead sua sponte raise a new argument at the appellate hearing that was not raised below and overrule the Board based on that new argument, without the Patent Owner or Board ever having an opportunity to address it;” and
  3. “Whether the Court may disregard claim language that makes a distinction between things associated with a vehicle and things associated with the driver of the vehicle.”

Denials

Since our last update, the Federal Circuit has denied four petitions for en banc rehearing: