Vidal Revives Baby Swaddle Patent Claims Axed by PTAB

In a precedential decision, Kathi Vidal, Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, ruled that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly invalidated Finnegan client Love to Dream’s baby swaddle patent. This case included a rare storyline in which patent claims depend on multiple other claims.

The patent contains two independent claims and 14 dependent claims that refer to the independent claims and add more specific details. In this unconventional approach, Love to Dream elected to use multiple dependent claims, which refer to both of the independent claims, instead of just one, meaning that each dependent claim has two different versions. The PTAB ruled last year that one of the independent claims was invalid, but the other was not. It then held that both versions of each of the multiple dependent claims were invalid. At Love to Dream’s request, Vidal reviewed the decision and considered a statute governing multiple dependent claims. She determined the PTAB was wrong, and only the versions that depend on the invalidated independent claim are invalid.

Finnegan partner Linda Thayer represented Love to Dream. She told Law360 that, “This is the right decision based on the patent law and statute. Our client is thrilled with the result.”

Linda went on to say that multiple dependent claims are rarely used, but they act as a type of shorthand allowing patent drafters to write two dependent claims at once without repeating the same language. The USPTO charges an extra fee to write claims in that way, since each one counts as two claims, and that Vidal correctly found that they should be treated as two separate claims.

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