In two different decisions this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit re-confirmed basic principles underlying the question of obviousness. This article discusses each of these decisions.
‘Belden v. Berk-Tek’
On Nov. 5, 2015, in Belden v. Berk-Tek,1 the Federal Circuit, in a rare instance, reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) decision not to invalidate certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,074,503 (the ’503 patent), a patent directed to a method for making a communications cable. The court affirmed the board’s decision to reject claims 1-4, but the court reversed the board’s decision to uphold claims 5 and 6, thereby also rejecting those claims. This was only the second time that the court has reversed a PTAB decision.
