Google Loses Network-1 Patent Appeal in Under a Page

By George Khoury, Esq. on January 25, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Decisions in patent appeals often involve long winded explanations that delve deep into technical specifications, discuss the various merits of the competing interests, and provide detailed exposition of how the ultimate decision was reached. However, sometimes, on appeal, all the circuit court really needs to say is "no error, judgment affirmed."

In the most recent of Google's patent appeals on the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal's docket, the court rejected the search giant's contention that a patent held by Network-1 was actually unpatentable. Luckily for Google, the appellate court provided a little less than a page worth of explanation.

What's This One About?

The patent Google was challenging involved a method of tagging digital content. Network-1, which owns the patent, claimed that YouTube, which is owned by Google, infringed upon their content tagging patent. Google in turn challenged the patent before the PTAB and lost, and appealed, and just lost again.

On appeal, Google claimed that the PTAB made an error in the construction of the phrase "machine readable instructions." However, the appellate court ruled that no such error was made, particularly given that the PTAB weighed evidence and arguments from the parties before adopting the construction it did. The appellate court concludes, as did the PTAB, Google failed to carry the burden of proof to show that Network-1's patent was unpatentable.

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