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October 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 5 denied a patent owner’s request that it consider the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision to affirm a Washington federal judge’s dismissal of its infringement complaint against Google LLC, leaving in place the panel’s January holding that the asserted claims of the patent were directed at an unpatentable abstract idea.
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October 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of Oct. 1 opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s finding that a technology company’s patent claims asserted against Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and its American affiliate were invalid, agreeing with Samsung’s alternative argument that the claims were improperly enabled while disagreeing with the judge’s finding that the claims were indefinite; the panel also dismissed as moot the plaintiff-appellant’s separate challenge to findings from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that one of the claims was unpatentable as obvious.
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October 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Over the objections of one circuit judge, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition from Eli Lilly and Co. (Lilly) for rehearing en banc and panel rehearing, leaving in place a panel’s April decision to reverse a Massachusetts federal judge’s judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of invalidity on patents held by Teva Pharmaceuticals International GmbH and its American affiliate for lack of written description and enablement; the denial of rehearing also leaves in place the panel’s decision to reinstate the jury’s verdict.
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October 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Georgia federal judge failed to adequately explain why a plaintiff-appellee technology company’s infringement suit was reasonable despite a summary judgment ruling of invalidity, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, vacating the judge’s denial of the defendant-appellant’s motion for attorney fees and sanctions and remanding for further proceedings.
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October 02, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 1 affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s judgment for defendants-appellees in a contract and trade secret dispute that formerly involved patent infringement claims, finding that the plaintiff-appellant forfeited its interference and damages theories advanced on appeal, which the panel said was a sufficient reason to affirm.
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October 01, 2026
GREEN BAY, Wis. — For the second time, a Wisconsin federal judge has granted summary judgment of invalidity to a defendant eyeglass company, this time analyzing under the clear and convincing evidence standard required by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after it vacated the judge’s earlier grant of summary judgment; the appeals court said in October 2025 that the judge was wrong to apply issue preclusion based on prior findings from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) when granting summary judgment because PTAB uses a different standard of proof from the one required for district courts.
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September 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the dismissal of a patent complaint filed by the receivership estate for an advertising technology company against Google LLC and YouTube LLC, agreeing with a California federal judge that the asserted patents were ineligible as directed at the abstract idea of targeting advertisements to users of the internet.
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September 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. —Qualcomm Inc. tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a Sept. 28 brief that it should deny Federal Express Corp.’s petition for a writ of certiorari, arguing that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was correct to hold that it 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); on Sept. 29, a technology company filed an amicus curiae brief in support of FedEx, urging the court to hear FedEx’s arguments.
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September 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a win for Apple Inc., a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a ruling from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that six patent claims asserted against Apple involving speech recognition technology were unpatentable as obvious; the panel held that the patent’s term “feature vector” includes the vector-quantized codewords disclosed in an earlier patent.
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September 28, 2026
SAN DIEGO — A California federal jury on Sept. 25 held that Apple Inc. owes $5.7 billion in damages for infringing a company’s patents covering haptic feedback technology; the jury found that Apple infringed the asserted claims of the patents but did not do so willfully and that Apple failed to show that the asserted claims were invalid.
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September 23, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that the asserted patent claims in patents describing a system for calculating object level profitability were patent ineligible because they only described using a computer for a basic process; the panel reversed an Illinois federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of eligibility and affirmed the judge’s finding that defendant entities did not infringe the patents’ claims on the alternative ground of invalidity.
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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.