Justices Asked for Rule for Construing Patent Terms in Nike Case

The U.S. Supreme Court should resolve an internal conflict among Federal Circuit decisions about the proper standard for interpreting key patent terms, a patent owner argued in its petition asking the court to take up its dispute with Nike Inc. and Adidas America Inc.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in July that Nike, Adidas, and other shoe companies didn’t infringe Akeva LLC’s patents because they didn’t cover footwear with conventional soles.

But that ruling was based on an improper approach to construing key terms in the patent, Akeva said in its petition for review. ...