More than a decade after it sued Samsung for the first time, SoftView L.L.C. has filed a second case (2:25-cv-00246) against it, this one in the Eastern District of Texas. The prior round of district court litigation in this campaign ended in 2015, but appeals from decisions by the USPTO concerning the asserted patent family persisted through late last year. That family generally relates to the display of Internet content in a mobile setting, with infringement allegations focused on a long list of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.

US patent law gives defendants a variety of options for challenging patent validity within and outside district court, including through administrative proceedings brought before the USPTO. Yet when a party’s validity challenge reaches a final decision, that party is then limited in its ability to subsequently take certain related actions, including relitigating certain validity arguments in another proceeding—a principle known as estoppel that is reflected in the America Invents Act (AIA) and various regulations issued by the USPTO under that law. The Federal Circuit has now issued a new precedential decision, in SoftView v. Apple, that upheld one such regulation, one that prevents patent owners from “obtaining” claims that are “not patentably distinct” from claims invalidated by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)—a broader estoppel standard than the one that applies in district court. While the appellate court also found that the USPTO was within its authority to issue that regulation in the first place, it additionally determined that the PTAB had been wrong to find that the provision also bars “maintaining” existing claims that meet this same criterion.