June 2014

Spotlight Info

In InTouch Technologies, Inc. v. VGo Communications, Inc., No. 13-1201 (Fed. Cir. May 9, 2014), the Federal Circuit reversed the determination at the district court that two of the asserted patents were invalid for obviousness and remanded with instructions to vacate the invalidity judgments, among other rulings.  In reversing the verdicts for obviousness, the Court explained that VGo Communications, Inc.’s expert’s testimony failed to identify reasons why a person of ordinary skill would have combined the asserted prior art references and failed to consider any objective evidence of nonobviousness, among other deficiencies.  The Court concluded that the expert’s statements that a skilled artisan could have combined the references, rather than explaining why the skilled artisan would have combined the references, were insufficient to support an obviousness determination.  See this month’s edition of Last Month at the Federal Circuit for a full summary of this decision.