US Supreme Court asked to review Google patent case

Technology company Vringo has asked the US Supreme Court to review an appeals court’s decision that reversed a $30 million patent ruling that previously went in its favour.

Vringo filed a writ of certiorari on Thursday (May 14) after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit refused to hear Vringo’s dispute en banc in December last year.

The writ relates to Vringo’s dispute with Google and AOL.

In a 2-1 decision in August 2014, the federal circuit reversed a decision by the US District Court for the Eastern District for Virginia’s to award Vringo $30 million in damages after it found Google and AOL liable for infringing two of its patents.

The patents at the centre of the dispute cover filtering internet searches. Vringo, through its subsidiary I/P Engine, acquired the patents from search engine Lycos in September 2011.

Vringo filed the infringement claim against Google and AOL in 2012.

In July 2012, a jury at the district court ruled in favour of Vringo but Google and AOL challenged the validity of the patents on the grounds that they were obvious.

The federal circuit agreed and reversed the decision.

But Judge Raymond Chen wrote a dissenting opinion criticising the federal circuit’s application of its “common sense” understanding as to why the patents were obvious.

Vringo followed up Chen’s criticism and has asked the supreme court to clarify the “common sense” that the federal circuit must apply when assessing grounds of obviousness.

Vringo has asked the supreme court to consider the question: “Under what circumstances, if any, may the federal circuit review de novo a jury’s factual findings underlying a district court’s determination that a patent is non-obvious?”

Vringo said: “This court should end the federal circuit’s unbounded review of factual findings relating to obviousness by granting the petition.”

Bob Stoll, partner at law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, told WIPR: "This is an area where there has been significant litigation in the US.  The Teva v Sandoz case from the supreme court found that the federal circuit should use clear error as the standard for reviewing district court findings of fact for claim construction, not  de novo review.

"It will be interesting to see if the supreme court takes a case like this to make a similar finding for the factual determinations in arriving at an obviousness conclusion. Judge Chen seemed to think that similar concepts apply."

Neither Vringo nor Google had responded to request for comment at the time of publication.