The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently reversed a summary judgment of patent invalidity from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania because the proponent of invalidity failed to produce expert testimony as to “the knowledge and understanding of the relevant technology by persons of skill in the field of the invention,” in Elcommerce.com v. SAP AG, Case No. 11-1369, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 3357 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 24, 2014).
The case originated in the Eastern District of Texas and was transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where there was a continuation of the jurisdictional arguments that are interesting but not important here. What is interesting here is the Federal Circuit’s approval of the district court’s claim construction and its application in the parties’ stipulation that under that construction there was no infringement of the method claims, but the reversal of the district court’s grant of summary judgment of invalidity of the system claims. The issues surrounding the grant of summary judgment on the system claims concerning the role of expert testimony is of particular interest here.
