By Reza Mollaaghababa
In a rare case of disagreeing with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated and remanded a PTAB decision invalidating claims 10-25 of PPC Broadband, Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 8,323,060, which were challenged in an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding by Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC. (IPR2013-00342).
The challenged claims of PPC’s patent relate to a coaxial cable connector and require that the cable connector include “a continuity member having a nut contact portion positioned to electrically contact the nut and positioned to reside around an external portion of the connector body when the connector is assembled …” The Board held that the broadest reasonable construction of “reside around” was “in the immediate vicinity of; near.” Based on this construction, the Board concluded that the claims were obvious in view of the references cited by the petitioner, Corning, against the claims.
The Board reached this construction by relying on the broadest dictionary definition of the term “around.” In contrast, PPC (the patent owner) had proposed that the broadest reasonable construction of the term “reside around” in light of the claims and the specification is “encircle or surround.”
The CAFC sided with the patent owner and held that in the context of the patent the Board’s construction was not reasonable. The CAFC explained that “[t]he fact that ‘around’ has multiple dictionary meanings does not mean that all of these meanings are reasonable interpretations in light of the specification.” The CAFC further stated that all of the claims of the patent are directed to coaxial cable connectors and the components of these connectors partially or wholly encircle the inner electrical conductor. The CAFC emphasized that “[g]iven the context of this technology, it seems odd to construe the term ‘reside around’ without recognizing the context of its use in terms of the coaxial cable at issue.” Continue reading “CAFC Vacates a PTAB Decision Due To Faulty Claim Construction”