WIPR survey: Readers split over Supreme Court’s Cuozzo ruling
Readers are divided over whether the US Supreme Court made the right decision when it upheld the claim construction standard used by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
In a decision handed down on June 20, the Supreme Court said that it was reasonable for the PTAB to use the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) standard when assessing patent claims.
Responding to WIPR’s most recent survey on whether they agreed with the ruling, 50% of readers agreed with the Supreme Court while the other 50% did not.
The case, Cuozzo Speed Technologies v Lee, centres on the claim construction standard that the PTAB applies during the inter partes review (IPR) process.
In January this year, the court granted a writ of certiorari in the case. The writ, filed by Cuozzo, challenged an earlier PTAB decision to invalidate a patent it owns covering a speedometer.
The dispute started in 2012 after Cuozzo’s rival Garmin International challenged the validity of Cuozzo’s patent, US number 6,778,074, by requesting an IPR at the PTAB.
After construing the claims asserted in the patent using its BRI standard, the PTAB invalidated it in 2013 on the grounds that it was obvious.
Cuozzo argued that its patent would have been held valid under the Phillips standard, which is used by US district courts. It said the BRI encompasses a wider prior art search, which increases the chance of the patent being invalidated on grounds of obviousness.
But the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the US Supreme Court both rejected Cuozzo’s claim.
“It is too easy to use BRI and invalidate a patent,” said one reader.
He added: “The problem is that the IPR judges the claims by one standard and other courts judge it by the Phillips standard. This is a nightmare and not good for patent owners.”
Another said: “The pendulum resulting from the America Invents Act (especially IPR) has swung too far in favour of parties attacking patents.”
For this week’s survey we ask: “Last week WIPR reported that Hillary Clinton suggested allowing the US Patent and Trademark Office to keep all the money it receives from applications. Will this help to improve the office’s services?”
