IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: PTAB’s website design system obviousness determination reversed, (Jun 17, 2025)

By Kevin M. Finson, J.D.

A finding of obviousness in patent claims related to website design was reversed because the Board had applied an erroneous claim construction.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred in claim construction relating to a “style” used in a patent directed to methods and apparatus for building a website, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The proposed construction which the Board had claimed to adopt did not require that a style be associated with a single object, but rather that it be capable of being associated with either a single object or a plurality of objects (Express Mobile, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 23-1646 (Fed. Cir. Jun. 17, 2025)).

Express Mobile, Inc. (Express) was the assignee of U.S. Patent No. 7,594,168 (the ’168 patent), which was entitled “Browser Based Web Site Generation Tool and Run Time Engine” and was directed to methods and apparatus for building a website. Specifically, the patent claimed the placement of “objects” on a page and the association of those objects with a “style” such that when the style was changed all of the objects with which it was associated would also be changed. Meta Platforms, Inc., SAP America, Inc., Expedia, Inc., eBay, Inc., Homeaway.com, Inc., Squarespace, Inc., Wix.com, Ltd., Wix.com, Inc., and Google, LLC (collectively, Meta) petitioned for inter partes review of the ’168 patent on the ground of obviousness over several prior art references. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted review and found each of the challenged claims unpatentable. Express appealed.

Claim construction. Express argued that the Board erred in construing the claim term “style,” noting that the Board had said it was adopting Express’s proposed construction of “a collection of one or more settings that is defined separately from any single object but can be associated with one or more objects” but its obviousness analysis differed from this construction.

The court found that the Board had erroneously required that a style be associated with only one object. The claim language itself clearly showed the association of a “style” with a plurality of objects, not just one. The court also found that the specification supported this use of the term, and held that while Express’s proposed construction could have been more lucid, it was still apparent that a “style” must be capable of being associated with both a single object and a plurality of objects in order to fit the claim language.

The court vacated the decision of the Board, adopted Express’s proposed construction of the term “style,” and remanded for further proceedings.

The Case is No. 23-1646.

Judge: Stoll, K.

Attorneys: Jeffrey A. Lamken and Rayiner Hashem (MoloLamken LLP) for Express Mobile, Inc. Heidi Lyn Keefe (Cooley LLP) for Meta Platforms, Inc. James Lawrence Davis, Jr. (Ropes & Gray LLP) for SAP America, Inc. Jared Bobrow (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP) for eBay, Inc. Jeffrey John Catalano (Smith, Gambrell Russell LLP) for Expedia, Inc., and Homeaway.com, Inc. Brian Robert Matsui (Morrison & Foerster LLP) for Squarespace, Inc., Wix.com, LTD, and Wix.com, Inc. Naveen Modi (Paul Hastings LLP) for Google LLC.

Companies: Express Mobile, Inc.; Meta Platforms, Inc.; SAP America, Inc.; eBay, Inc.; Expedia, Inc.; Homeaway.com, Inc.; Squarespace, Inc.; Wix.com, LTD; Wix.com, Inc.; Google LLC

Cases: Patent TechnologyInternet FedCirNews USPTO