IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: PTAB invalidity findings affirmed in computer network speed patent dispute, (Aug 1, 2025)
Law Firms Mentioned:Cherian LLP | Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP
Organizations Mentioned:Bright Data Ltd. | Code200, UAB | Major Data UAB | Metacluster LT, UAB | Norton Rose & Fulbright, LLP | Oxysales, UAB | Teso LT, UAB | The Data Company Technologies Inc. | coretech lt, UAB
By Kevin M. Finson, J.D.
The PTAB’s obviousness determinations on claims relating to improving network traffic were affirmed because the board did not err in claim construction and its findings of fact were supported by expert testimony.
A patentee of network technology failed to show any error in the PTAB’s determinations that its claims were obvious, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The Board’s claim construction was supported by the specification and claim language, and its determinations of obviousness were supported by expert testimony, (Bright Data, Ltd. v. Code200, UAB, Nos. 23-2144, 23-2145, 23-2146, 23-2147, 23-2414, 23-2415, 23-2442, 23-2443, (Fed. Cir. Aug. 1, 2025)).
Bright Data, Ltd. (Bright) was the owner of U.S. Patents Nos. 11,044,342 (the ’342 patent), 10,257,319 (the ’319 patent), and 10,484,510, the ’510 patent), each of which were part of the same family and shared a specification. The patents were directed to a system for improving network speed by retrieving information requested by users from multiple online sources and offloading the data transfers to nearby peers.
Several entities, including Code200, UAB (Code200), petitioned for inter partes review. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted review and found all of the challenged claims unpatentable as anticipated or obvious. Bright appealed the Board’s construction of two claims and its findings regarding secondary considerations of non-obviousness.
Claim construction. The Board had construed two disputed claim terms “client device” and “second server” by their function or role at any given time, which Code200 had argued was the plain and ordinary meaning. Bright argued that these terms should instead have been construed to require different structures of hardware.
The court reviewed the specification, claim language, and prosecution history and found that these terms were used uniformly in reference to a function carried out at a given time. Nothing in the language of the patents would require different hardware.
Obviousness. Applying these claim constructions, the Board had found all of the claims anticipated or rendered obvious by a prior art reference which described a system for anonymizing web transactions which functioned by passing requests through other devices that functioned as the “second servers” of the patent claims.
The appeals court found that these conclusions were supported by substantial evidence in the form of the plain language of the prior art reference and by Code200’s expert testimony. Secondary considerations of non-obviousness were properly rejected because there was no evidence of nexus between the challenged claims and the secondary considerations.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s decision.
The Case is Nos. 23-2144, 23-2145, 23-2146, 23-2147, 23-2414, 23-2415, 23-2442, 23-2443.
Judge: Stark, L.
Attorneys: Robert M. Harkins (Cherian LLP) for Bright Data Ltd. Daniel Leventhal (Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP) for Code200, UAB, Teso LT, UAB, Metacluster LT, UAB, Oxysales, UAB, coretech lt, UAB, The Data Company Technologies Inc., and Major Data UAB.
Companies: Bright Data Ltd.; Code200, UAB; Teso LT, UAB; Metacluster LT, UAB; Oxysales, UAB; coretech lt, UAB; The Data Company Technologies Inc.; Major Data UAB
Cases: Patent FedCirNews USPTO