In a precedential decision, the Federal Circuit reaffirmed that the Patent Trial and Appeal’s Board (PTAB) is required to explicitly state motivations to combine prior-art references in claim rejections for obviousness.  Rejections that rely on mere statements that a person of ordinary skill in the art reading the prior-art references would understand that the combination would have allowed for claimed features is not enough.
Continue Reading You’re So Vague: Federal Circuit Sends IPR Decision Back to PTAB for More Thorough Analysis