Fresh From the Bench: Latest Precedential Patent Case

CASE OF THE WEEK

ironSource Ltd. v. Digital Turbine, Inc., Appeal No. 2024-1831 (Fed. Cir. April 7, 2026)

In its only precedential patent opinion last week, the Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal from a post-grant review in which substitute claims were permitted, finding that patent challenger ironSource failed to establish Article III standing for its appeal.  The Court’s ruling turned on the fact that all originally-challenged claims of the patent at issue had been found unpatentable, and that ironSource had not shown how its planned product features were implicated by the amended—as opposed to original—claims.

In the proceedings below, ironSource had challenged claims of Digital Turbine’s U.S. Patent No. 11,157,256, which is directed to background downloading of mobile device applications.  The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found all challenged claims unpatentable in light of a prior decision involving the ’256 patent’s parent, but granted Digital Turbine’s contingent motion to amend with narrowed substitute claims, over ironSource’s opposition.  In appealing that decision, ironSource argued that Digital Turbine had made “veiled threats” of enforcing its patents against “Click to Install” (C2I) features of ironSource’s software product; that ironSource had ultimately removed those features as a result; and that it was prevented from re-introducing the features by the Board’s finding on the substitute claims.

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Editors:

Nika Aldrich, IP Litigation Group Leader, Schwabe

Jason A. Wrubleski, Shareholder