Court Revives Parts of PowerBlock’s Dumbbell-Patent Lawsuit

A Utah judge erred in tossing PowerBlock Holdings Inc.'s suit accusing a rival fitness equipment company of copying its patent for adjustable dumbbells, the Federal Circuit ruled.

The district court significantly trimmed the case against IFit Inc. short, finding 19 of the 20 claims from PowerBlock’s US Patent No. 7,578,771 were invalid because they were abstract, flunking a legal test for determining patent eligibility. In doing so, that court decided the patent improperly described a desired result for an adjustable dumbbell system without a sufficiently detailed explanation of such a system.

The patent, however, “goes beyond claiming the ‘broad concept’ ...