Motivation to Combine Archives

Motivation to Combine

You Can’t Skirt around Obviousness by Arguing Expectation of Success Must Be Absolute

by Alexandra Cavazos, PhD | Feb 16, 2023 | Patents

Affirming an obviousness decision by the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit explained that the expectation of success need only be reasonable and not absolute. Transtex Inc. v. Vidal, Case No. 20-1140 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 3, 2023) (Prost, Reyna JJ.) (Schall, J. dissenting).

Transtex makes aerodynamic trailer skirts, which improve fuel efficiency by reducing air drag. Transtex sued WABCO in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleging that WABCO’s trailer skirts infringed several Transtex patents. WABCO responded by filing two inter partes review (IPR) petitions, one of which was against a patent with claims directed to “resilient” trailer skirts and the “resilient” struts used to attach them to a trailer.

WABCO argued that the challenged claims of the patent were obvious over a combination of the Layfield and Rinard references. WABCO submitted expert declarations stating that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that Layfield’s rigid struts could benefit from being constructed of resilient, more flexible material. Accordingly, a skilled artisan would have been motivated to look to other, similar types of trailer components that are also flexible—like that disclosed in Rinard—to improve upon Layfield’s rigid struts. WABCO successfully relied on much of the same expert testimony to argue that a skilled artisan would also have enjoyed a reasonable expectation of success in combining the more rigid struts of Layfield with the compressible materials taught in Rinard because Rinard taught the utility of having compressible “air scoops” at the tail end of a trailer, which would compress downwards when the trailer contacted a loading dock.

The Board agreed with WABCO and found the challenged claims obvious. According to the Board, Layfield taught all of the claim limitations except for a “resilient strut” that could flex both toward the center of the trailer and away from the center of the trailer and then regain its shape while Rinard taught the benefits of using compressible air scoops made out of a resilient material as part of a trailer skirt system. The Board also concluded that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine Layfield with Rinard and would have had a reasonable expectation of success, given the predictable nature of the field. Transtex appealed.

The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that substantial evidence in the form of expert testimony supported the Board’s finding that although Layfield taught a more rigid strut instead of a resilient strut as claimed, a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine Layfield’s strut with the resilient materials disclosed in Rinard and would have enjoyed a reasonable expectation of success when doing so. The Court concluded that this was a case where the evidence of motivation to combine, which “everyone agrees meets the substantial evidence threshold,” significantly overlapped with the evidence relating to a reasonable expectation of success, so it was correct to conclude that a skilled artisan would have reasonably expected the resiliency benefit that motivated them to combine [...]

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Sleep Better: Amendments Proposed during IPR Deemed Proper and Valid

by Rodney Swartz, PhD | Nov 29, 2022 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (Board) finding that proposed amendments made during an inter partes review (IPR) are valid and proper despite the inclusion of changes not related to patentability issues raised in the petition. Nat’l Mfg., Inc. v. Sleep No. Corp., Case No. 21-1321 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 14, 2022) (Stoll, Schall, Cunningham, JJ.)

We’ve likely all seen the commercials promising a proven quality of sleep. Sleep Number is the owner of numerous patents, including several directed to methods for adjusting “the pressure in an air mattress ‘in less time and with greater accuracy’ than previously known.” The patents state this is achieved by taking pressure measurements at the valve enclosure and applying a pressure adjustment factor that is iteratively revised using an “adjustment factor error.” The patent states that this method allows for monitoring the pressure of the air mattress without the need to turn off the pumps.

American National Manufacturing challenged the validity of the patents in an IPR proceeding, claiming that most were rendered obvious by the prior art of Gifft in view of Mittal and Pillsbury and that six of the dependent claims requiring a “multiplicative pressure adjustment factor” would have been obvious in further view of Ebel. Gifft disclosed an air-bed system using valve assembly pressure to approximate the air chamber pressure and Mittal and Pillsbury both disclosed using additive offsets to improve accuracy. Ebel disclosed using both additive and multiplicative components to accurately measure the actual pressure in an inflating or deflating air bag.

The Board agreed with American National that it would have been obvious to combine Gifft, Mittal and Pillsbury and that the resulting combination rendered most of the claims obvious, but it also noted that the combination failed to show that a “skilled artisan would have applied Ebel’s multiplicative factors” to the prior art. However, in each proceeding Sleep Number filed a motion to amend the claims contingent on a finding that the challenged claims were unpatentable. The proposed claims included the “multiplicative pressure adjustment factor” that the Board had determined was not unpatentable along with other non-substantive changes.

American National took issue with these amendments, arguing they were legally inappropriate, non-enabled because of an error in the specification and lacked written description support. The Board disagreed. American National appealed. Sleep Number cross-appealed the Board’s finding of obviousness.

The Federal Circuit found that the proposed amendments were not improper even though some of the changes were non-substantive changes to address consistency issues. The Court pointed out that “once a proposed claim includes amendments to address a prior art ground in the trial, a patent owner also may include additional limitations to address potential § 101 or § 112 issues, if necessary.” The Court rejected American National’s argument that permitting such amendments creates an “asymmetrical” and “unfair” proceeding “by allowing the patent owner and the Board to address concerns that may be proper for [an] examination or reexamination proceeding, but that [...]

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Robotic Skepticism May Not Trump Motivation to Combine

by Joshua Revilla | May 12, 2022 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision finding the challenged claims patentable because the Board impermissibly rested its motivation-to-combine analysis on evidence of general skepticism in the field of invention. Auris Health, Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical Operations, Case No. 21-1732 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 29, 2022) (Dyk, Prost, JJ.) (Reyna, J., dissenting).

Intuitive owns a patent that describes an improvement over earlier robotic surgery systems that allows surgeons to remotely manipulate surgical tools using a controller. The patent focuses on solving the problem of swapping surgical tools by implementing a pulley system that allows tools to be swapped in and out more quickly. Auris petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of the patent, arguing that a combination of two references disclosed every limitation of the challenged claims. Auris further argued that a skilled artisan would be motivated to combine the references to decrease the number of assistants needed during surgery. While the Board agreed that the combination of the two references disclosed every limitation of the challenged claims, it found that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not be motivated to combine the references because of general skepticism from surgeons “about performing robotic surgery in the first place.” Auris appealed.

The Federal Circuit began by explaining that the motivation-to-combine inquiry asks whether a skilled artisan “not only could have made but would have been motivated to make the combinations . . . of prior art to arrive at the claimed invention.” The Court also explained that as to the “‘would have’ question, ‘any need or problem known in the field of endeavor at the time of invention and addressed by the patent can provide a reason for combining the elements in the manner claimed.’”

The Federal Circuit concluded that generic industry skepticism about robotic surgery cannot, on its own, preclude a finding of a motivation to combine. The Court explained that although industry skepticism can play a role as a secondary consideration in an obviousness finding, such evidence must be specific to the invention and not simply the field as a whole. The Court concluded that the Board’s motivation-to-combine determination was based almost exclusively on evidence of general skepticism. Thus, the Court vacated the decision and remanded the case, directing the Board to examine the evidence using the correct obviousness criteria.

Judge Reyna issued a dissenting opinion in which he disagreed as to whether the Federal Circuit should implement a rule that general skepticism cannot support a finding of no motivation to combine. Judge Reyna expressed concern that the majority opinion could be understood to create an inflexible, rigid rule that the Board cannot consider evidence of skepticism toward the invention , including whether that skepticism would have dissuaded a skilled artisan from making the proposed combination. Judge Reyna also argued that notwithstanding the majority opinion, the Board did not rely solely on general skepticism, but rather provided additional explanation as to why the “no [...]

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When it Comes to Method of Use Claims, Preamble Language Regarding Intended Use is Limiting

by Paul Devinsky | Aug 26, 2021 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued three separate but related rulings (two precedential, one non-precedential) affirming decisions by the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) regarding the validity of nine US patents and addressing the limitations of preamble language and motivation to combine. Eli Lilly Co. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals, Case Nos. 20-1876, -1877, -1878 (Fed. Cir. August 16, 2021) (Lourie, J.); Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Eli Lilly Co., Case Nos. 20-1747, -1748, -1750 (Fed. Cir. August 16, 2021) (Lourie, J.); Teva Pharmaceuticals v. Eli Lilly Co., Case Nos. 20-1749, -1751, -1752 (Fed. Cir. August 16, 2021) (Lourie, J.). These decisions come as the latest events in a dispute between Teva and Eli Lilly Company over competing products for the treatment of migraine headaches.

Teva owns nine patents directed to humanized antagonist antibodies that target calcitonin gene-related peptide. In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved Teva’s version of the biologic fremanezumab (Ajovy®) and then approved Lilly’s biologics license application for galcanezumab (Emgality®) eight days later. Both drugs are part of a new class of migraine therapeutic agents called calcitonin gene-related peptide antagonists.

Lilly challenged the validity of Teva’s nine patents covering Ajovy® in a series of inter partes review (IPR) petitions, arguing that the claims were obvious. The Board instituted IPR for all nine Teva patents. The similarity of subject matter and arguments led to three separate written opinions, each addressing three of the patents. In these decisions, the Board upheld the validity of three of the patents at issue (which covered methods of treating migraines with the antibodies) but found the claims of the six other patents directed to the antibodies themselves invalid.

Lilly appealed the first Board ruling covering methods of treating migraines to the Court. Lilly argued that the Board erred by (1) “reading a result into the constructions of the preambles and the term ‘effective amount,’” which led the Board to erroneously require Lilly to prove that a skilled artisan would have had “a reasonable expectation of achieving a result that was not claimed,” and (2) applying a too-high standard when weighing evidence to determine whether a skilled artisan would have a reasonable expectation of success. Lilly contended that a claim preamble containing only a statement of purpose cannot be a claim limitation and that no weight should have been given to the preambles. Teva argued that Lilly was basing its analysis on a false dichotomy between “limiting preambles” and preambles that are mere statements of purpose.

The Federal Circuit found the claim preambles to be limiting, reasoning that claims directed to methods of using compositions “are not directed to what the method ‘is’” but rather to “what the method ‘does,’” which usually is recited in the preamble. The preambles provided the only metric by which one practicing the claim could determine whether the amount administered is an “effective amount” and provided the antecedent basis for at least one later claim term in the independent claims.

After finding the preambles to [...]

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Even Judges Have a Boss: PTAB Must Sufficiently Articulate its Obviousness Reasoning

by Paul Devinsky | Jul 29, 2021 | Patents

Addressing the sufficiency of the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (PTAB) justification of its inter partes review (IPR) determination, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s obviousness determinations, concluding that the PTAB’s findings regarding motivation to combine were not supported by substantial evidence. Chemours Company FC, LLC v. Daikin Industries, Ltd., Daikin America, Inc., Case No. 20-1289, -1290 (Fed. Cir., July 21, 2021) (Reyna, J.) (Dyk, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Chemours, owner of the challenged patents, appealed the PTAB’s final written decisions in two IPRs initiated by Daikin. The challenged claims relate to a unique polymer for insulating communication cables formed by pulling wires through melted polymer to coat and insulate the wires, a process known as “extrusion.” The challenged claims of the patents recite that the polymer has a specific melt flow range of about 30+/- g/10 mins. The polymer’s melt flow range correlates with how fast the melted polymer can flow under pressure during extrusion. A higher melt flow rate means a faster coating of the polymer onto a wire. During the IPRs, the PTAB found all challenged claims unpatentable as obvious.

The Federal Circuit reviews the PTAB’s legal determinations de novo and its factual findings for substantial evidence, which “requires more than a ‘mere scintilla’ and must be enough such that a reasonable mind could accept the evidence as adequate to support the conclusion.” Obviousness is a question of law necessarily made on underlying findings of fact, and in making factual findings, the PTAB “must have both an adequate evidentiary basis for its findings and articulate a satisfactory explanation for those findings.”

In this instance, the Federal Circuit found that the PTAB’s obviousness findings were not supported by substantial evidence. According to the Court, while the PTAB may rely on prior art other than the references being applied or combined to inform itself of the state of the art at the time of the invention, the scope of the relevant prior art encompasses only that which is “’reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was involved.”’ Here, the Court explained that the only prior art reference relied on was not appropriate because it expressly taught away from the claimed invention and relied on teachings from other references that were not concerned with the particular problems the prior art sought to solve. As the Court noted, the PTAB “did not adequately grapple with why a skilled artisan would find it obvious to increase [the reference’s] melt flow rate to [the] claimed range while retaining its critical ‘very narrow molecular-weight distribution.’” To support its obviousness conclusion, the PTAB needed “competent proof showing a skilled artisan would have been motivated to, and reasonably expected to be able to, increase the melt flow rate of [the reference’s] polymer to the claimed range when all known methods for doing so would go against [the reference’s] invention by broadening molecular weight distribution.” By failing to provide its reasoning, the PTAB relied [...]

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Size Matters in Obviousness Analysis

by Paul Devinsky | Oct 29, 2020 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) decisions, finding that the Board erred in its construction of certain claim terms relating to an artificial heart valve that does not require removal of the damaged native heart valve. St. Jude Medical, LLC v. Snyders Heart Valve LLC, Case Nos. 19-2108, -2109, -2140 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 15, 2020) (Taranto, J.).

St. Jude filed two petitions for inter partes review (IPR) of a patent for an artificial heart valve and a system for inserting the valve. Both petitions were instituted by the Board and resulted in final written decisions. In the first decision, the Board found that St. Jude failed to establish unpatentability of the challenged claims, rejecting St. Jude’s contention that all challenged claims were anticipated by and obvious over the Leonhardt prior art reference. In the second decision, the Board found that certain claims were anticipated by the Bessler prior art reference, but rejected St. Jude’s contentions as to all other claims. St. Jude appealed, arguing that the Board erred in the first decision by erroneously construing the term “band” and erred in the second decision by finding that St. Jude failed to prove that a skilled artisan would have made a particular combination of Bessler and the Johnson prior art. Snyders cross-appealed in the second decision as to the claims the Board found were anticipated by Bessler.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s conclusions in the first decision, finding that not only was the Board’s construction of the term “band” proper, but that it was actually broader than St. Jude’s proposed construction—and that St. Jude expressly accepted the Board’s construction. The Board construed the heart valve band to mean “a structure generally in the shape of a closed strip or ring” (replacing St. Jude’s “circular” with “closed”). In the prior art, Leonhardt discloses a graft material which extends the length of the entire structure. The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board’s finding that Leonhardt’s graft material was “like a sleeve” as opposed to “a closed strip or ring.” St. Jude argued that an ordinary skilled artisan’s understanding of the term “band” does not include a length restriction, that a Leonhardt’s material was just a long band, and that the Board effectively changed its construction of the term. The Federal Circuit, however, was not persuaded by St. Jude’s unlimited-length definition of “band,” instead turning to dictionary definitions that included terms like “thin” and “narrow,” and looking to the patent specification that did not explicitly disclaim any length restrictions. The Court ultimately rejected St. Jude’s arguments, finding that St. Jude should have proposed a claim construction that precluded any limitations on length if it wished to argue such. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s findings as to first decision.

The Federal Circuit next addressed Snyder’s cross-appeal. Snyder disputed the board’s construction of the “size[] and shape[]” of a frame that the patent requires must be inserted [...]

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Challenge to PTAB’s Finding of Non-Obviousness Fails to Pay Out

by Thomas DaMario | Aug 13, 2020 | America Invents Act, Patents

Addressing whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in finding that a dependent claim was valid despite the patent owner’s lack of validity arguments beyond those advanced for the corresponding and invalid independent claim, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s ruling and found no APA violation. FanDuel, Inc. v. Interactive Games LLC, Case No. 19-1393 (Fed. Cir. July 29, 2020) (Hughes, J.) (Dyk, J. concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Interactive Games owns a patent directed to a method for allowing users to gamble remotely via a mobile device, according to certain game configurations. Specifically, the independent claim is directed to altering a user’s game outcome based on the gaming configuration associated with the location of a user’s mobile gaming device. A dependent claim adds the additional limitation of “accessing a lookup table which contains an ordered list of locations and associated game configurations.”

FanDuel petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of the patent as obvious based on three references. The first reference (Carter) disclosed a mobile wagering system capable of determining a gambler’s location and restricting access based on the location. Carter’s system used a database that correlated various locations with applicable access levels. Importantly, the reference generally indicated that the system may employ various components such as “memory elements, processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, and the like.” The second reference (Walker) disclosed enabling or disabling certain features on a mobile gaming device based on a user’s location. And the third reference (the webpage) included a list of slot payouts by casino, city and state, alphabetically organized by state. FanDuel also submitted an expert declaration that the use of look-up tables was well known in the art and that it would have been an obvious design choice to store Carter’s jurisdictional information in an “ordered list” similar to the webpage.

In its Preliminary Patent Owner Response, Interactive incorporated its validity arguments for the independent claim into its arguments for the dependent claim, but did not otherwise advance any substantive arguments specific to the dependent claim. The PTAB instituted IPR for all challenged claims. Following institution, Interactive submitted a patent owner response, which again did not advance any substantive arguments specific to the dependent claim. While Interactive did submit an expert declaration, the statements made by FanDuel’s expert specific to the dependent claim were uncontested. Ultimately, the PTAB found the independent claim invalid, but found the dependent claim valid. FanDuel appealed.

FanDuel argued that the PTAB’s decision with respect to the dependent claim violated the APA because the PTAB changed its obviousness theory midstream. FanDuel alleged that no further record development was presented regarding the dependent claim after institution, and therefore a finding of validity in light of the PTAB’s decision to institute amounted to a changed position by the PTAB, to which FanDuel was entitled notice and an opportunity to respond.

The Federal Circuit disagreed and affirmed the PTAB’s decision. In finding [...]

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“Seams” Like Activity Giving Rise to Infringement Risk Supports Appellate Jurisdiction

by McDermott Will & Emery | Jul 8, 2020 | America Invents Act, Patents

Adding to its body of jurisprudence on standing to challenge an adverse final written opinion in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found a petitioner had constitutional standing to appeal where it showed it engaged in activity that would give rise to a possible infringement suit. Adidas AG v. Nike, Inc., Case Nos. 19-1787; -1788 (Fed. Cir. June 25, 2020) (Newman, J.).

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