Substantial evidence did not support the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s finding that patentee LiquidPower Specialty Products Inc. (“LSPI”) failed to establish nexus, and thus the PTAB erred in not weighing LSPI’s objective evidence of non-obviousness in its decision invalidating a patent related to polymers added to crude oil, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held, vacating the Board’s decision and remanding. The court did find that substantial evidence supported the PTAB’s findings that prior art discloses a drag reduction limitation and that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art with a reasonable expectation of success (LiquidPower Specialty Products Inc. v. Baker Hughes Inc., October 18, 2018, Moore, K.).
Case date: 18 October 2018
Case number: No. 2018-1141
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
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