Federal Circuit affirms data patent after Google challenge
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld the validity of a data transmission patent, after Google had sought to invalidate it through an inter partes review (IPR).
Google had appealed against a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which upheld the validity of US patent number 8,601,154 during the IPR.
Owned by technology licensing company SimpleAir, the patent concerns a system and method for data communication connecting online networks with online and offline computers.
The PTAB’s decision turned on whether a prior art reference cited by Google, in combination with other art, rendered the ‘154 patent’s claims obvious and therefore unpatentable.
The disputed term at issue on appeal was the “central broadcast server”.
Under its broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), the board had construed the term as “one or more servers that are configured to receive data from a plurality of information sources and process the data prior to its transmission to one or more selected remote computing device[s]”.
In its appeal, Google claimed that the board had erred in applying its BRI claim construction standard, under which the PTAB concluded that Google’s cited prior art reference did not teach a crucial claim limitation.
Google’s obviousness challenge failed without that limitation, so the board didn’t reach additional questions of whether the proposed combination of references rendered the claims obvious.
The correct BRI construction for central broadcast server should not be “limited to receipt of data from a plurality of information sources but, instead, should only require receipt from one, or more, information sources”, argued Google.
Under Google’s preferred claim construction, the Federal Circuit said, Google’s cited prior art reference would seem to teach a central broadcast server.
But SimpleAir argued that Google had waived its opportunity to assert its current claim construction because it failed to articulate that before the board. Instead, SimpleAir claimed, Google agreed with the board’s BRI interpretation.
The Federal Circuit sided with SimpleAir, explaining that Google had waived the claim construction argument it had made before the court.
“Consequently, the PTAB’s conclusion that Google fails to identify in the prior art a central broadcast server must stand. Google’s obviousness challenge fails, and we affirm the PTAB’s decision upholding the patent- ability of the ‘154 patent claims,”said the court.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox
