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 in a case raising questions about claim construction. The court also denied three petitions in cases that raised questions about inter partes review petitions, claim construction, and eligibility. Here are the details.
En Banc Petitions
New Petition
Since our last update, a new petition for en banc rehearing was filed in AlterWAN, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. In its petition, AlterWAN asked the en banc court to review the following question:
- Whether the “majority opinion depart[ed] from numerous settled tenets of claim construction law” such as: “[g]iving preference to the plain meaning, and only departing from it when there is lexicography or disclaimer; [r]elying only on unambiguous prosecution-history statements; [r]equiring that disclaimers be ‘clear and unmistakable’; [g]iving primacy to the claim language over other intrinsic evidence; [a]ttributing different meaning to different terms; and [a]voiding construing a term to render language in another claim meaningless.”
Denials
Since our last update, the Federal Circuit denied three petitions for en banc rehearing:
- Keysight Technologies, Inc. v. Centripetal Networks, LLC (inter partes review petitions)
- Woodway USA, Inc. v. LifeCore Fitness, Inc. (claim construction)
- Ceiva Opco, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc. (eligibility)