Establishing Obviousness: A Fundamental Case Of Evidence Over Arguments

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's inter partes review decision declaring various claims of patent owner Thales' U.S. Patent No. 6,474,159 ("the '159 patent") nonobvious. In doing so, the Federal Circuit clarified what constitutes the substantial evidence required to sustain the Board's factual findings on appeal.

As evidence of obviousness, petitioner Elbit proffered expert testimony asserting that the two-step method for calculating a "relative angular rate signal" claimed in the '159 patent is "mathematically equivalent to" and bears "no practical difference" from the three-step method for calculating an object's relative orientation disclosed in the prior art. But the Board dismissed Elbit's expert testimony as being "unsupported" and thus failing to meet "the burden of proving [the claims of the '159 patent are] unpatentable by a preponderance of evidence."