Posts in IP News

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday handed SpaceTime3D, Inc. mixed results in two nonprecedential decisions involving graphical user interface patents challenged by Apple Inc. and Google LLC, with the outcomes turning largely on differences in the wording of related claims. In Apple Inc., Google LLC  v. SpaceTime3D, Inc., the court affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision upholding claims 1-13 of U.S. Patent No. 8,881,048 but finding claims 14-18 obvious. In a separate appeal, SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Google LLC, the CAFC affirmed the Board’s determination that all challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,304,654 and 9,696,868 were obvious.

On Friday, an amicus brief was filed at the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of major trade associations in the computer software, automotive, retail and other industries, urging the Court to grant Tesla’s petition for writ of certiorari following the denial of its petitions for inter partes review (IPR) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenging patent claims owned by self-driving technology company Granite Vehicle Ventures. The industry groups claim that the Court’s review is necessary to address so-called “patent trolls” and policies adopted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that effectively eliminate the use of IPRs to combat these allegedly bad actors.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a district court’s decision to dismiss a patent infringement suit on both improper venue and patent ineligibility grounds, holding that the district court was not required to stop its analysis after determining the venue was improper. The opinion was authored by Judge Prost.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Friday that it lacks jurisdiction to hear an appeal filed by T-Mobile US, Inc. and T-Mobile USA, Inc. against KAIFI LLC arising from a dispute over a patent settlement agreement, transferring the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In T-Mobile US, Inc. v. KAIFI LLC, Circuit Judge Chen authored the opinion for a panel that included Circuit Judges Taranto and Schall, concluding that the underlying disagreement over settlement contract language did not necessarily raise a substantial question of patent law.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) posted a final order to its website on August 27, publicly reprimanding a California patent attorney for submitting a claim construction chart containing citations that generative AI invented — not to case law, but to the intrinsic record of the patent in suit. In re Brian E. Mitchell, Proceeding No. D2026-16, resolves by settlement. Mitchell executed the agreement on July 20, 2026, and the OED Director on July 21. Tricia Choe, Associate General Counsel for General Law, approved it on July 27 on delegated authority from Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and USPTO Director John A. Squires.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Fifth Circuit nixes an appeal lodged by PhRMA and other drugmaker industry organizations against the Medicare drug negotiation program under the Inflation Reduction Act; the Ninth Circuit finds that Boeing’s patent inventorship claims are not compulsory to Zunum Aero’s trade secret misappropriation case;

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued two decisions today in related appeals arising from inter partes review (IPR) proceedings between Apple Inc. and Smart Mobile Technologies LLC. In the case, Apple Inc. v. Smart Mobile Technologies LLC, the CAFC affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) determination that Apple failed to prove certain claims of two Smart Mobile patents unpatentable as obvious, while vacating and remanding a separate portion of the same judgment that had found other claims obvious. In the companion appeal, the CAFC affirmed the PTAB’s decision rejecting Apple’s obviousness challenge to a third related patent. Circuit Judge Stark authored both opinions for a panel that included Circuit Judges Reyna and Hughes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit yesterday rejected Boeing’s bid to revisit its August 2025 ruling in favor of electric-aircraft startup Zunum Aero, holding that Boeing’s patent-inventorship counterclaims did not strip the Ninth Circuit of jurisdiction over the trade secret dispute. The Ninth Circuit panel denied Boeing’s petition for panel rehearing after concluding that its patent counterclaims were “permissive” rather than “compulsory”, and therefore not subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Zilkr Cloud Technologies, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., vacating in part and affirming in part a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision. The PTAB had held claims 1, 2, 6 through 8, and 12 through 14 of a patent owned by Zilkr Cloud Technologies, LLC unpatentable as obvious, and the CAFC remanded for further proceedings. The opinion was authored by Chief Judge Moore.

Yesterday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that the agency had designated as informative a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision in an ex parte appeal reversing an examiner’s rejection of patent claims directed to the isolation and detection of microRNA (miRNA) to determine a patient’s risk of radiation exposure for improper Markush groupings. Drawing primarily upon case law from the predecessor to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Federal Circuit, the informative designation is notable for its alignment with recent Federal Circuit case law encouraging flexibility in Markush grouping analyses.

Following the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) July 2026 proposal to require third-party requesters for ex parte reexamination (EPR) to identify all real parties in interest (RPIs), the 26 comments submitted to the Office reveal a sharp divide among the patent owners, tech companies, industry associations and individuals who weighed in. The comment period closed August 21, and the commenters included 17 organizations, associations or companies and 8 individuals (a duplicate comment was submitted by the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO).

On August 21, wikiHow, Inc. filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against OpenAI, Inc. and eight affiliated entities, alleging violations of the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The lawsuit centers on claims that OpenAI copied wikiHow’s how-to articles without authorization to train ChatGPT and to ground its outputs, then used that copied content to generate substitutes for wikiHow’s website.

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