Polycom Wins as Federal Circuit Upholds Patent Suit Dismissal

The Federal Circuit affirmed a California district judge’s decision to dismiss a patent suit filed against video conference tool maker Polycom Inc.

A patent owned by DirectPacket Research Inc. and asserted against Polycom covered abstract ideas of encoding and decoding data and converting formats, according to an opinion issued Wednesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Judge James Donato of the US District Court of the Northern District of California cut short DirectPacket’s suit in September 2023 when he found the last remaining patent in the case—US Patent No. 7,773,588—abstract and therefore patent-ineligible.

The appeals ...