Federal Circuit Takes Back Patent Case, With Reservations

The Federal Circuit re-accepted jurisdiction over a patent case involving computer circuits that it had originally sent to the Fifth Circuit.

Despite its previous transfer of the case and its issues with the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning, the Federal Circuit accepted the Fifth Circuit’s decision because it was “not implausible.”

KLA-Tencor owns U.S. Patent No. 8,817,260. Xitronix sued KLA for obtaining the patent through fraud on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, based on allegedly misleading statements KLA made to the patent examiner about the prior art. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled for KLA.

The ...