Fresh From the Bench: Latest Federal Circuit Court Cases

CASE OF THE WEEK

Ericsson Inc. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC, Appeal No. 2017-1521 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 27, 2018)

In an appeal from an inter partes review, the Court reviewed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s authority to strike arguments improperly raised for the first time in a reply. 37 C.F.R. § 42.23(b) (“… A reply may only respond to arguments raised in the corresponding opposition, patent owner preliminary response, or patent owner response.”).

In the decision, the Board held that certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,602,831 (the “’831 Patent”) were not unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103.  The ’831 Patent “is directed to increasing the reliability of a wireless communications system.”  Specifically, the ’831 Patent teaches the interleaving of packets with other packets within a packet block (i.e., S-blocks with S-blocks).

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Written by: Scott D. Eads and Nika F. Aldrich, Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt

Contributor: Cristin Wagner