Apple Escapes Watch Ban as Court Nixes Heart-Monitor Patents (1)

An administrative tribunal rightly invalidated three patents covering a way to detect irregular heartbeats Apple Inc. has been accused of infringing, the Federal Circuit ruled Friday, preventing a trade panel from enforcing a ban on certain Apple Watch imports.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a precedential opinion penned by Judge Leonard P. Stark, backed decisions from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding all claims in three AliveCor Inc. patents to be obvious in light of earlier inventions, and said the company forfeited its argument Apple improperly failed to disclose evidence that potentially contradicted its ...