Federal Circuit Affirms PTAB Cancellation of IV Wireless Security Patent in Ericsson IPR

The Federal Circuit has declined to overturn the invalidation of an Intellectual Ventures (IV) wireless security patent (7,496,674) in an inter partes review (IPR) filed by Ericsson (2015-1947). In a summary affirmance issued on August 16 without an accompanying opinion, the court upheld a May 2015 final decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that cancelled claims 1-22 of the ‘674 patent as anticipated by and obvious over prior art (IPR2014-00527). IV had sought to reverse this decision partly on the basis that one of these references, an article sponsored by the Department of the Air Force, did not anticipate claims 1-6 and 10-22 of the ‘674 patent and did not qualify as prior art. The NPE also challenged the Board’s ruling that claims 1-22 are obvious over two other references.