IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Largely favorable ruling for Samsung in IPR appeal over Power B2B’s interactive display patents, (Mar 31, 2025)

By Saurabh Kashyap, B.A., LL.B., LL.M.

PTAB erred by narrowly construing some claim terms leading to reversal and remand; correctly found other claims obvious as Power2B’s constructions conflicted with patent claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decisions in a set of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings initiated by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. against two related patents directed to interactive sensor-based display technologies owned by Power2B, Inc. The Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s construction of the claim “detector assembly” and its associated finding that three claims were not unpatentable, holding that the Board improperly read a multiple-element requirement into the term without support in the claim language or specification. It vacated the Board’s rulings on additional related claims and remanded for reconsideration under the corrected construction. Further, the court affirmed the PTAB’s invalidation of a separate set of proximity-based sensing claims, finding that Power2B’s proposed constructions improperly excluded touch and were inconsistent with the claim language, dependent claims, and specification. (Samsung Electonics Co., Ltd. v. Power2B, Inc., Nos. 23-1629 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 31, 2025)).

Background. The cross-appellant, Power2B, owns U.S. Patent Nos. 8,624,850 (the ’850 patent) and 9,569,093 (the ’093 patent), which share a common specification dating to an April 2006 filing. The patents disclose systems for integrated display and input devices using sensor arrays to detect an object’s relative position—whether by touch or mere proximity—and initiate corresponding functions. The appellant, Samsung, challenged these patents at the PTAB by filing IPR petitions asserting that various claims were obvious over prior art publications, including (1) Reime: a prior art publication disclosing a display device with sensor elements located at the edges, used to detect input positions—relevant to the “detector assembly” claims; (2) Yamaguchi: a reference describing systems that detect the position of an object near a display using reflected light, supporting the obviousness of proximity-based input sensing; and (3) Hinckley: a publication teaching motion and gesture detection near a display surface, including tracking direction and distance, cited in relation to Power2B’s “propinquity” or proximity-sensing claims.

In its final written decisions, the PTAB upheld the patentability of a first group of claims relating to a "detector assembly" arranged at or along an edge of a display, finding that the term required at least two detector elements and that Samsung's cited prior art (Reime) did not disclose this configuration. The Board found the remaining "propinquity" claims—those directed to proximity sensing—to be obvious in light of prior art, interpreting their scope to include touch and near-touch inputs.

Samsung appealed the adverse determinations on the detector assembly claims, contesting the Board’s claim construction and obviousness analysis. Power2B cross-appealed the invalidation of the propinquity claims, arguing that the Board misinterpreted the claims and failed to find teaching gaps in the cited art.

Detector assembly claims. The Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB's construction of "detector assembly," finding that the Board erred in requiring "two or more detector elements." The court explained that neither the plain language of claims, such as claim 15 of the '850 patent, nor the specification imposed a numerical limitation on the number of detector elements. While some dependent claims expressly required multiple components, the doctrine of claim differentiation suggested that the independent claims were broader.

Citing Liebel-Flarsheim Co. v. Medrad, Inc., 358 F.3d 898, 910 (Fed. Cir. 2004), and Decisioning.com, Inc. v. Federated Dep’t Stores, Inc., 527 F.3d 1300, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008), the court emphasized that descriptions of preferred embodiments cannot restrict the broader claim language absent a clear disavowal. The Board's reliance on specification references to plural detectors was insufficient to narrow the claims.

On this basis, the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB's conclusion that Reime failed to disclose the required structure. It held that claims 15 and 16 of the '850 patent and claim 26 of the '093 patent were unpatentable as obvious since Reime disclosed at least one detector element arranged on one edge, and the Board had previously found that Reime taught the other claim elements.

Edge limitation clarified. The court also rejected the PTAB’s apparent reading of the “edge” limitation—which required a detector assembly to be arranged “at” or “along” one edge—as requiring the entire detector assembly to be positioned on a single edge. Quoting Baldwin Graphic Sys., Inc. v. Siebert, Inc., 512 F.3d 1338, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2008), the court reiterated that indefinite articles like “a” or “an” typically include “one or more” unless the patentee clearly intended otherwise. Power2B offered no persuasive intrinsic support for a single-edge-only interpretation, and the court found Samsung’s broader interpretation consistent with Federal Circuit precedent.

Remand for dependent claims. Because the PTAB’s rejection of Samsung’s obviousness arguments for the remaining detector assembly claims—claims 17–18, 21–22, and 30 of the ’850 patent and claims 29, 36–38, 44–46, 48–49, and 56–58 of the ’093 patent—had relied on the now-reversed construction of “detector assembly,” the court vacated the Board’s findings and remanded. These dependent claims either required multiple detectors or additional elements like support substrates. The PTAB had not addressed whether Reime disclosed those additional limitations, and the court directed it to do so under the corrected construction.

Propinquity claims. Power2B’s cross-appeal focused on the PTAB’s interpretation of the “propinquity” limitation—phrases like “a predetermined degree of propinquity”—which Power2B argued should exclude touching. The Federal Circuit disagreed, affirming the PTAB’s conclusion that the plain and ordinary meaning of these terms encompasses zero distance, i.e., touch. It found no evidence in the specification or prosecution history to support Power2B’s proposed exclusion.

The court found persuasive the PTAB’s reliance on dependent claims that expressly distinguished between touching and not-touching scenarios, concluding that the independent claims necessarily covered both. It also cited Figure 20A of the ’850 patent, which described sensing both touch and near-touch events. The appellate court agreed that Power2B’s proposed construction improperly attempted to rewrite the claim scope using an artificial dichotomy.

Obviousness findings supported by substantial evidence. The court further affirmed the PTAB’s obviousness findings as to the propinquity claims: claims 31 and 41 of the ’850 patent and claims 1, 5, 8, and 11–13 of the ’093 patent. It held that Yamaguchi taught position sensing of objects in close proximity—including touching—using light detection. It also upheld the PTAB’s reliance on expert testimony explaining how Reime and Hinckley disclosed proximity sensing capabilities and directional motion detection, including the limitations of dependent claim 11.

Rejecting Power2B's argument that the references lacked 3D positional sensing capabilities, the court agreed with the Board that the claims did not require sensing along a z-axis and that the teachings of 2D position detection within a threshold distance were sufficient. The Board's reliance on changes in output signals and reflection-based detection to infer propinquity was well supported, and the appellate court found no reversible error.

Conclusion. Thus, the Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB’s narrow construction of the claim “detector assembly,” held three claims unpatentable, vacated and remanded on a broader set of related claims for further analysis under the correct claim construction, and affirmed the PTAB’s invalidation of Power2B’s proximity-sensing claims. Samsung, having substantially prevailed, was awarded costs.

The Case is Nos. 23-1629, 23-1631, 23-1753, 23-1745.

Judge: Hughes, T.

Attorneys: Coke Morgan Stewart (O’Melveny & Myers LLP) for Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. Mark Thomas Deming (Polsinelli PC) for Power2B, Inc.

Companies: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Samsung Electronics America, Inc.; Power2B, Inc.

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