Intellectual Property News and Reports

American National Manufacturing Inc. and Sleep Number Corp. each appeals the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s final written decisions in two inter partes reviews. The Board issued mixed decisions in those proceedings, determining that some, but not all, of the challenged claims were not unpatentable. These appeals and cross-appeals involve two patents and numerous issues, including two on which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has intervened.

Our opinion focuses on four of these issues: (1) whether the Board erred in permitting the patent owner to present proposed amended claims that both responded to a ground of unpatentability and made other wording changes unrelated to the IPR proceedings; (2) whether those proposed amended claims were not enabled because of an alleged error in the specification; (3) whether those proposed amended claims should have been rejected for allegedly raising an inventorship issue; and (4) whether the Board inappropriately considered the petitioner’s sales data in its secondary considerations analysis. For the below reasons, we affirm. Although we have thoroughly considered the other issues raised by both parties, we affirm the Board’s determinations regarding those issues without significant discussion.

Download American National Manufacturing Inc. v. Sleep Number Corp.