IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Federal Circuit affirms PTAB’s broad construction of ‘processor‘ in hearing technology, (Oct 9, 2025)

By Kevin M. Finson, J.D.

“Nothing in the language of the processor limitation also requires that it be the processor, as opposed to some other component of the overall device, that performs the driving or exciting a signal..."

In a nonprecedential opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) final written decision concerning a patent owned by ST Case1Tech, LLC. The case centered on the construction of the term “processor” in claim 1 of the patent, which relates to personalized hearing technology. STCase1Tech brought the appeal, arguing that the Board erred in construing claim 1’s processor limitation too broadly. The court disagreed, finding that the Board’s construction was supported by the plain language of the patent’s specification (ST Case1Tech, LLC v. Squires, No. 23-2294 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 9, 2025) and ST Case1Tech, LLC v. Squires, No. 23-2335 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 9, 2025)).

ST Case1Tech, LLC, previously Staton Techiya, LLC, was the owner of U.S. Patent No. 8,111,839 (the ’839 patent) and its grandchild, U.S. Patent No. 9,124,982 (the ’982 patent), both of which share a specification and related to always-on recording systems. The patents differ only in that the ’839 patent claimed technology implemented in an earpiece while the ’982 patent claimed similar technology implemented in a mobile phone. Samsung Electronics Co. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (collectively, Samsung) petitioned for inter partes review of several materially identical claims of both patents, claims 14-17 of the ’839 patent and claims 17-20 of the ’982 patent. Regarding both sets of claims, the Board found them unpatentable as obvious. ST Case1Tech appealed, Samsung withdrew from the case, and the Director of the USPTO intervened to defend the Board’s decision.

ST Case1Tech argued that the board erred in its construction of the term “audio forensics analysis” and had argued before the Board that the plain meaning of analysis, in the context of the hearing protection industry, was the calculation of a noise dosage. ST Case1Tech attempted to clarify its position on appeal to say that analysis included but was not the same as the calculation of noise dosage, but the court held that this argument was waived because it was not made before the Board. The court found that the patent language clearly intended a broader use of “analysis” because it was explicitly defined to include a speech-to-text analysis system.

The court found no error and affirmed.

The Cases are No. 23-2294 and No. 23-2335.

Judge: Per Curiam.

Attorneys: Timothy Devlin (Devlin Law Firm LLC) for ST Case1tech, LLC. Omar Farooq Amin, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for John A. Squires.

Companies: ST Case1tech, LLC

Cases: Patent FedCirNews USPTO