Available Now: Federal Circuit Year in Review Report
Knobbe Martens’ 2025 Federal Circuit Year in Review report, covering over 50 of the most noteworthy patent-related Federal Circuit decisions issued last year, is now available! The report provides in-depth analysis from Knobbe Martens lawyers on a wide range of impactful rulings, organized by more than a dozen categories including claim construction, infringement, patentable subject matter, and PTAB developments. Learn more and download the report here.
Don’t Wait for the Other Croc to Drop
In Crocs, Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, Appeal No. 24-1300, the Federal Circuit held that mixed determinations of violation and no violation in the ITC trigger separate appeal windows under 19 U.S.C. § 1337.
Crocs filed a complaint with the ITC alleging multiple respondents violated 19 U.S.C. § 1337 by activity that infringed or diluted certain Crocs trademarks. Of the accused respondents, four defaulted (“Defaulting Respondents”) and three participated in an evidentiary hearing before an ALJ (“Active Respondents”). The ITC found no violation by the Active Respondents because Crocs failed to prove likelihood of confusion, infringement, or dilution as to those respondents. The ITC issued a limited exclusion order to the Defaulting Respondents. Crocs filed its notice of appeal to the Federal Circuit ninety-nine days after the ITC issued its final determination.
The Federal Circuit dismissed Crocs’ appeal to the finding of no violation as to the Active Respondents because it was brought more than sixty days after the final determination. Crocs argued its appeal was timely because it was filed within sixty days of the expiration of the presidential review period triggered by the determination that the Defaulting Defendants were in violation. However, the Federal Circuit explained that in investigations that have a mixed result of a violation finding (subject to a presidential review period) and a no-violation finding (not subject to a presidential review period), there are two distinct appeal windows. This is true even when the mixed results are written in the same final determination opinion. Because Crocs’ appeal as to the Active Respondents was filed more than sixty days after the determination of no-violation, the appeal was untimely.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the determination as to the Defaulting Respondents, holding the ITC provided a sufficient basis for issuing the limited exclusion order.
First Things First: When Method Claims Require Order
In Sound View Innovations, LLC v. Hulu, LLC, Appeal No. 24-1092, the Federal Circuit held that a method claim can implicitly require a specific order of steps when the claim’s language, through logic or grammar, makes one step depend on the prior performance of another, even if the claim does not explicitly recite an order.
Sound View Innovations sued Hulu for infringement of a patent related to methods for reducing streaming latency. The district court granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Hulu and held that (1) the claim required a specialized buffer that Hulu’s products do not have and (2) Hulu’s system did not perform the claimed method steps in the required sequence.
On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment. The Federal Circuit disagreed with the district court’s construction requiring a specialized buffer. The Federal Circuit, however, agreed that the claimed method implicitly required steps be performed in order. Normally, the steps of a claimed method need not be carried out in order. But the claim at issue referred back to a previous step using the past tense, indicating that the first step must logically precede the second in order.
The court’s analysis emphasized that there need not be express indicia of ordering in the claim, such as letters or numbers identifying the steps. Instead, the court explained, implicit ordering exists when there are inherent logical dependencies or functional relationships between the steps of a method claim. Because Hulu’s accused system did not perform the steps in the necessary order, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement.
Result-Oriented Claims and Section 101: Claiming the How
In US Patent No. 7,679,637 LLC v Google LLC, Appeal No. 24-1520, the Federal Circuit held that result-oriented claims were found ineligible under 35 U.S.C 101 when the claims did not describe how the claimed results were achieved or how they embodied any specific technological improvement.
US PATENT NO. 7,679,637 LLC sued Google LLC for patent infringement of the ’637 patent, which related to web conferencing systems including “time-shifting capabilities” enabling participants “to observe [a] session in real-time, delayed while the session is still in progress, or after the session has completed.” Google moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing that the claims were ineligible under 35 U.S.C § 101. The district court granted Google’s motion to dismiss and denied leave to amend the complaint based on futility. US PATENT NO. 7,679,637 LLC appealed.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. Under Alice Step One, the Federal Circuit found that the claims were directed to the patent-ineligible abstract idea of “allowing asynchronous review of presentations.” This was because the claims did not describe “how the alleged goal of asynchronous review” was achieved. Further, the Federal Circuit noted that the written description did not disclose any improvement to the underlying components or explain how the claimed invention was a technical solution to a problem facing the inventor. Under Alice Step Two, the Federal Circuit found that the result-oriented claims provided no specific implementation illustrating how to achieve the claimed results. The specification made clear that the claimed applications were conventional, well-known components operating according to their ordinary functions, and therefore could not amount to an inventive concept. For these reasons, the claims were invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Knobbe Martens Partners Jeremiah Helm and Sean Murray Analyze Federal Circuit’s “Blaze Marks” Guidance in Law360
In their latest Law360 column on the Federal Circuit’s recent notable rulings, Knobbe Martens partners Jeremiah Helm and Sean Murray explore the court’s decision in Duke University v. Sandoz, a case focused on the written description requirement.
According to the authors, the ruling “addresses a fundamental question in patent law: can a patent applicant pick and choose from different pieces of the disclosure when crafting a claim to the invention?”
In answering this question, the Federal Circuit referenced the concept of “blaze marks” on multiple occasions, a long-held articulation of the written disclosure requirement that emphasized the need for a clear path between the patent’s disclosure and the claimed invention. Where a district court had found Sandoz unable to prove Duke University did not provide a clear written description in their patent for an eyelash growth serum, the Federal Circuit disagreed. Instead, the court emphasized that when a patent discloses a laundry list of possible elements, it must also provide clear “blaze marks” to guide a skilled artisan to the combination of elements ultimately claimed.
Helm and Murray note that Duke highlights “an important limit on retrospective claim drafting” and underscores that a patent’s specification must “provide a clear path to the specific claimed invention, and not just the individual claimed elements in isolation.”
“Moving forward, Duke will likely provide patent challengers with a potent tool to attack claims revised during prosecution to recite a subgenus not specifically disclosed in the patent,” they conclude.
Read the full article here.
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