By Vijay Kumar

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) recently handed down its first decision regarding an appeal from an inter partes review (“IPR”) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”). The majority decision resulted in a win on all fronts for the Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), as well as those parties challenging patents.

The case, Garmin International v. Cuozzo Speed Technologies, concerned an IPR that was requested the first day that IPRs were made available under the America Invents Act (“AIA”). In its petition, the patent’s challenger, Garmin, sought to invalidate four claims from Cuozzo’s patent no. 6,778,074 (“the ‘074 patent”) based on the obviousness of combining the prior art. The PTAB took up arguments on three of the claims and, following a trial, ruled in Garmin’s favor, deeming the claims obvious and thus unpatentable. The PTAB also denied Cuozzo’s motion to amend its claims. Cuozzo appealed both decisions to the CAFC. Continue reading →