Divided Federal Circuit Revives Computer-Aided Design Patent

Autodesk Inc. must face revived patent infringement claims after the Federal Circuit ruled a trial court applied the wrong standard for indefiniteness when it invalidated parts of a patent on three-dimensional geometric modeling.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held that a claim term is indefinite if there are any “unanswered questions” about that term. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit called that an “incorrect standard” that led to a “flawed analysis of validity,” in a precedential opinion Thursday.

The appeals court faulted the trial court for not considering the claim language in ...