Hitachi Metals Gets Limited Reprieve on Rare-Earth Magnet Patent

Hitachi Metals Ltd. of Japan will get a second chance to defend the validity of two claims of a U.S. patent on rare-earth magnets used in the automotive, computer, and renewable energy industries.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit mostly upheld judgments by the Patent and Trademark Office in favor of the Alliance of Rare-Earth Permanent Magnet Industry, a consortium of China-based patent challengers (Hitachi Metals, Ltd. v. Alliance of Rare-Earth Permanent Magnet Industry, 2017 BL 232152, Fed. Cir., No. 2016-1824, unpublished 7/6/17). The court agreed with the PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board that ...