By Rose Esfandiari
Publication Date: 2025-12-10 15:26:00
“The CAFC held that the Board’s use of terms like “suggests” did not mean it was applying an obviousness standard, but rather that it was explaining its interpretation of the prior art’s express disclosures.’” – CAFC
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday issued a precedential decision in International Business Machines Corporation v. Zillow Group, Inc., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that certain claims of an IBM patent on single sign-on (SSO) technology were unpatentable, while others were not. The CAFC found no fault with the PTAB’s claim construction or its analysis of the prior art and rejected IBM’s argument that the Board relied on a theory not raised in the initial petition for inter partes review (IPR).The decision was authored by Judge Chen.
The dispute originated from an IPR that Rakuten Rewards, doing business as Ebates Performance Marketing, petitioned for IPR at the Patent…
