Fed Circ affirms invalidity of Sisvel mobile phone patents
Precedential opinion upholds Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that two of the licensing firm’s patents are invalid | Challengers to the patents include Telit, Dell and Thales.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated two mobile phone tech patents owned by patent licensing firm Sisvel International.
The dispute began when Internet of Things (IoT) cellular technology providers Sierra Wireless and Telit Cinterion—along with co-petitioners including Thales and Dell—challenged the patents’ validity.
But this effectively ended last Friday, September 1, in a three-panel precedential opinion delivered by the Federal Circuit.
The patents at issue—US patent numbers 7,433,698 and 8,364,196—describe “methods and apparatuses that rely on the exchange of frequency information in connection with cell reselection between a [mobile phone] and a central mobile switching centre.”
Both are entitled Cell Reselection Signalling Method. The ’196 patent is a continuation of the application that eventually gave rise to the ’698 patent.
Plain meaning
Sisvel, which was founded in Italy in the 1980s after acquiring a patent portfolio from Indesit, had challenged the PTAB’s construction of a single claim term, “connection rejection message”.
Sisvel had also challenged the board’s denial of its revised motion to amend the claims of the ’698 patent.
But the appeals court affirmed last week that five claims of the ’698 patent, and nine claims of the ’196 patent were unpatentable as anticipated and/or obvious in view of certain prior art.
The court, presided over by Judge Leonard Stark, agreed that the term "connection rejection message" should be given its "plain and ordinary meaning of 'a message that rejects a connection'."
The court concluded that the board “correctly determined that Sisvel failed to meet its burden to show that the scope of its substitute claims is not broader than the scope of its original claims,” wrote Judge Stark.
Robert Gajarsa and Timothy Devlin of Devlin Law Firm represented Sisvel.
Sierra was represented by Amanda Tessar and Daniel Keese of Perkins Coie, while Guy Yonay and Kyle Auteri of Pearl Cohen represented Telit and all appellees respectively.
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