WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated today an earlier decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) regarding a dispute between a group of adult entertainment companies and WAG Acquisition LLC over buffering systems for streaming media.
The adult companies are WebPower, Inc.; FriendFinder Networks, Inc.; Streamray, Inc.; WMM, LLC; WMM Holdings, LLC; Multi Media, LLC; DuoDecad IT Services Luxembourg S.A.R.L.; Accretive Technology Group, Inc.; ICF Technology, Inc.; Riser Apps LLC; StreamMe, Inc. and fka Vubeology, Inc.
The issue is over U.S. Patent No. 8,122,141 (aka the “141 patent”), owned by WAG Acquisition. WebPower initially sought a PTAB review of the patent, which began in January 2017, and the other companies joined as parties in June 2017. PTAB reviewed claims 10-23 of the ‘141 patent and found them “unpatentable.”
WAG then appealed the Board’s decision as to claims 10-18, and today the Federal Circuit vacated the decision because, as the court explained, “the Board’s validity analysis rests on an incorrect claim construction.”
The adult companies argued that claims 10-18 of the "141 patent" were anticipated by an earlier patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,389,473 (aka “Carmel”), and were thus unpatentable.
Today’s decision vacated the Board’s decision and remanded it for further proceedings.