Fresh From the Bench: Latest Precedential Patent Cases

CASE OF THE WEEK

International Business Machines v. Zillow Group, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2024-1170, -1274 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 9, 2025)

In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit reviewed cross-appeals from an inter partes review of IBM’s U.S. Patent No. 7,631,346, and affirmed on all counts.  The ’346 patent is directed to systems and methods for single sign-on operations, permitting a computer user to create and log into several accounts using a single set of login credentials.  IBM has asserted the ’346 patent against  Zynga, Airbnb, and other online services using third-party sign-in options like, “Sign in with Facebook.”  In this appeal, the Court affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision that certain broader claims of the ’346 patent are unpatentable, and also affirmed the Board’s decision that claims directed to certain narrower applications were not shown to be unpatentable.

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ALSO THIS WEEK

Coda Development s.r.o. v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Appeal No. 2023-1880 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 8, 2025)

Following a $64 million jury verdict against Goodyear in a trade secret and inventorship case concerning self-inflating tire technology, the Federal Circuit affirmed judgment as a matter of law for Goodyear, finding no misappropriation and denying correction of inventorship.  In finding no misappropriation, the Court explained that the alleged trade secrets were either not defined with sufficient particularity, not kept secret, or not actually used by Goodyear, and thus each failed to satisfy one or more of the showings necessary for misappropriation.  The denial of Coda’s correction of inventorship claim was also proper because Coda’s sole basis for reversal depended on overturning the district court’s JMOL on the trade secret claims, which the Federal Circuit affirmed.  Separately, the Court found that the district court did not improperly disregard jury findings, because the jury never compared the scope of the alleged trade secrets and the patent claims, and the district court correctly concluded that differences in scope meant the trade secret evidence was insufficient to establish sole inventorship.

The opinion can be found here.

Editors:

Nika Aldrich, IP Litigation Group Leader,  Schwabe

Jason A. Wrubleski, Shareholder

Contributors:

Jason Evans