Fresh From the Bench: Latest Precedential Patent Cases

CASE OF THE WEEK

Ingevity Corporation v. BASF Corporation, Appeal No. 2024-1577 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 11, 2026)

In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit affirmed a $85 million antitrust verdict from the District of Delaware, based on Ingevity’s unlawful tying of a patent license to the purchase of “staple goods.”

Both parties sell carbon honeycombs for use in automobile air-intake systems and fuel vapor canisters.  The honeycombs are used to control emissions from automobiles, by filtering air entering the engine, and capturing gasoline vapors released from the gas tank.  Ingevity sued BASF for infringement of U.S. Patent RE38,844 (“the ’844 patent”), which describes and claims systems and methods for reducing emissions from an automobile’s gas tank.  Honeycombs used in the air-intake system do not come within the scope of the ’844 patent, but honeycombs used in fuel vapor canisters do.  BASF brought counterclaims for illegal tying under the Sherman Act, alleging that Ingevity conditioned licenses to the ’844 patent on customers’ agreements to fulfill their honeycomb product needs by exclusively purchasing Ingevity’s honeycomb products, products which can be used for infringing and non-infringing purposes.

READ MORE

ALSO THIS WEEK

Read the full summaries via the button below.

Apple Inc. v. Squires, Appeal No. 2024-1864 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 13, 2026)

In a return to the Federal Circuit following a prior appeal, which we wrote about in 2023 as our Case of the Week here, the Court affirmed a district court holding that the Director of the Patent Office did not violate the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) by issuing decisions designated as “precedential” without following rulemaking procedures under the APA.  At issue were the NHK and Fintiv decisions, which were designated “precedential” by the prior administration.  Those two decisions established factors for rejecting petitions for inter partes review while litigation was pending.  The prior appeal, in 2023, established that Apple had standing to challenge the decisions. The district court thereafter dismissed Apple’s case, finding that the NHK and Fintiv decisions did not constitute impermissible rulemaking under the APA, but instead qualified as “general statement of policy,” which are excepted from APA rulemaking requirements.  In a lengthy, 22-page opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed...

Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, Appeal No. 2024-1541 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 13, 2026)

In an appeal from an inter partes review decision upholding challenged claims, the Court reviewed the Board’s construction of a disputed claim limitation, “locating encryption information that identifies encrypted portions of frames of video within the requested portions of the selected stream of protected video.”  The Federal Circuit found the board erred, vacated the Board’s non-obviousness decision, and remanded for further proceedings...

GoTV Streaming, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2024-1669, -1744 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 9, 2026)

In a case asserting infringement of several patents regarding rendering commands for wireless devices, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court denial of judgment on the pleadings and found GoTV’s patents ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. U.S. Patent Nos. 8,478,245; 8,989,715; and 8,103,865 concern methods and systems involving a server that receives requests for content from wireless devices and delivers the content in accordance with specifications related to the devices’ capabilities.  The Federal Circuit applied the traditional two step analysis under Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), finding the claims to be directed to an abstract idea that fails to provide the required specificity...

READ MORE

Editors:

Nika Aldrich, IP Litigation Group Leader, Schwabe

Jason A. Wrubleski, Shareholder

Contributors:

Michael A. Cofield, Shareholder

Trevor Gruwell, Associate

Tyler Hall, Shareholder