Case: Patents/Obviousness (Fed. Cir.)

The Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that claims of Koninklijke Philips N.V.'s patent that aims to reduce signaling overhead in an HSDPA system are unpatentable as obvious over prior art, in an inter partes review by Quectel Wireless Solutions Co. Ltd. The court said that substantial evidence supports the board’s findings on motivation to combine, and the board didn’t err in concluding that Philips’ evidence of objective indicia of nonobviousness didn’t rebut Quectel’s strong prima facie case that the claimed invention would have been obvious in view of prior art.