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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New York federal judge’s decision to enter a $3.24 million award for attorney fees and expenses, along with postjudgment interest, in a dispute related to patents describing processes for growing diamonds in a lab, agreeing that the plaintiff-appellant’s infringement position became objectively baseless after discovery, yet the entity still pursued its infringement claims.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Upholding a New York federal judge’s construction of a claim phrase in a patent describing a process for making iron supplements, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel rejected the patent holder’s challenge to the judge’s decision to enter summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of a defendant-appellee entity.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a decision by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that affirmed a patent examiner’s rejection of a claim in a patent describing a catheter device, finding that PTAB’s “incorrect construction of ‘flow barrier’ impaired its obviousness analysis.”
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ordered new trials on validity in two disputes over plaintiff-appellee entities’ patent on a float tool for use in oil wells, holding that a Texas judge erred in construing a claim relevant to both cases; the panel vacated an infringement win for the plaintiff-appellees in one of the cases but preserved a contributory infringement judgment in the other.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Pennsylvania federal judge’s decisions to grant a defendant-appellee medical device company’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement and to deny the plaintiff-appellant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of infringement; the panel saw no error in the judge’s construction of a claim phrase that led to summary judgment on certain claims nor any reason to overturn the jury’s verdict on other claims.
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September 17, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — In a long-running dispute over patented voice-recognition technology, Comcast Corp. and a related entity (together, Comcast) will not be able to argue in a bench trial on its inequitable conduct counterclaim that a patent it was found earlier this year to have infringed was unpatentable as obvious or anticipated based on prior art patents, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled.
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September 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Finding that a coding technology company still held a valid exclusive license to a series of patents and copyrights when it shifted its business to enforcement of intellectual property, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Delaware federal court’s dismissal of the company’s suit against Broadcom Inc. and other defendant-appellees because the university that owned the intellectual property was not an otherwise necessary party and because the plaintiff-appellant’s license was not terminated as a result of the shift in business.
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September 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a recently filed petition for a writ of certiorari, Apple Inc. asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that upheld an import ban on certain Apple Watches, arguing that the appeals court improperly loosened the domestic-industry requirement for U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) patent complaints and affirmed the agency on rationales it never adopted.
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September 15, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a split opinion, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s judgment of noninfringement in favor of Amazon.com Inc. and a related entity, with the majority finding no error in the judge’s construction of claims in a dispute over a patent that “relates to implementing wide area networks with improved quality of service.”
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September 09, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Sept. 8 affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to award more than $700,000 in attorney fees against a plaintiff-appellant entity in a dispute over patents covering three-dimensional sensing technologies, finding that the record does not establish that the plaintiff-appellant conducted an adequate presuit investigation.
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September 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a determination from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims of a patent describing a vitamin D treatment held by a couple were unpatentable as obvious, determining that substantial evidence supported PTAB’s underlying prior art factual findings and that the couple failed to properly develop certain theories before the board.
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September 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In separately filed petitions for rehearing, a patent holder is requesting that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reconsider a panel’s decision to affirm a Texas federal judge’s dismissal of its suit against Volkswagen Group of America Inc. and an award of more than $200,000 in attorney fees, and the entity’s counsel William P. Ramey III is requesting that the appeals court reconsider its timeliness finding that led it to reject his appeal of the judge’s order holding him jointly and severally liable.
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September 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a finding of obviousness from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in a dispute over a dental tool patent, finding that a prior art reference cannot be considered to have a provisional application’s filing date merely by satisfying procedural priority requirements; the application must provide written-description support for at least one published claim.
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September 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Substantial evidence supported the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) factual findings that led to it determining that all claims in multiple patents held by a genomics company were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held; the panel rejected the appellant company’s challenge to PTAB’s motivation-to-combine analysis and other elements of its findings.
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September 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had substantial evidence to support its factual findings that underpinned its ruling that Robert Bosch LLC and Mercedes-Benz USA LLC (collectively, Bosch) failed to show that claims of patents describing fuel injector products were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.
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September 01, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has requested responses from Qualcomm Inc. and the U.S. government in response to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Federal Express Corp. in which the shipping company asked the high court to review a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the appeals court was barred from reviewing whether Qualcomm identified all real parties in interest in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
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August 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Aug. 26 partly vacated a finding from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that patent claims held by a technology company related to cloud communication were unpatentable as obvious, finding that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly construed certain elements of the claims.
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August 27, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge held that a technology company was estopped from making doctrine of equivalents arguments in support of its infringement claims against Dropbox Inc., finding that the company surrendered all equivalents between the original version of its patent claims and an amended version when it added a claim limitation that required virtual files be “indistinguishable” from local files.
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August 25, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Virginia federal judge rightly dismissed a complaint brought by inventor advocacy groups against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and its director because the groups alleged neither a cognizable organizational injury nor an identified member facing imminent future harm in their suit claiming that the PTO violated rulemaking procedures by using misleading language in patent cover letters, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.
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August 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Texas federal judge’s decision to dismiss a patent holder’s suit against Volkswagen Group of America Inc. with prejudice and to award more than $200,000 in attorney fees; the panel also dismissed counsel William P. Ramey III’s appeal of the judge’s sanctions that held him jointly and severally liable for the fee award because Ramey failed to timely appeal the sanction in his own name.
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August 19, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Substantial evidence supported the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that a publication describing facial-analysis research was analogous prior art, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, affirming PTAB’s decision that claims of a patent held by television research entity Nielsen Co. (US) LLC were unpatentable as obvious.
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August 18, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Pennsylvania federal judge’s denial of a preliminary injunction in a dispute over a design patent for a hook for hanging handbags in closets, holding that the judge’s finding that the appellant was unlikely to succeed on the merits a reasonable conclusion due to differences between the design patent and the accused product; the panel issued an erratum to the opinion on Aug. 17, correcting a minor error.
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August 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a recent petition for a writ of certiorari, Federal Express Corp. (FedEx) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the appeals court was barred from reviewing whether Qualcomm Inc. identified all real parties in interest in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
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August 14, 2026
SAN ANTONIO — A Texas federal judge found that a patent infringement claim brought by archery product makers against competitors should have been filed in an Iowa federal court; the judge elected to transfer trademark infringement and other claims to the Iowa court as well instead of requiring the claims to be litigated separately in two courts.
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August 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding that all claims of a video streaming patent challenged by Netflix Inc. were unpatentable as they were obvious in view of a prior art patent; the panel saw no error in the board’s construction of the phrase “a response to the content status” in the challenged claims.