K/S HIMPP v. Hear-Wear Techs., LLC
Addressing whether the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
properly refused to reject as obvious a claim calling for a
multi-prong electrical connection, the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit affirmed the USPTO, finding that there must be
documentary evidence of record to support core factual findings,
such as whether a claim element was in the prior art. K/S
HIMPP v. Hear-Wear Techs., LLC, Case No. 13-1549 (Fed. Cir.,
May 27, 2014) (Lourie, J.) (Dyk, J., dissenting).
K/S HIMPP sought an inter partes reexamination of
Hear-Wear's patent covering a three-module hearing aid.
Two dependent claims were directed to the middle connector module
and called for a plurality of prongs for an electrical
connection. During the original prosecution of the patent,
the USPTO examiner concluded that multi-prong electrical
connections were well known in the art, but the claims were
eventually allowed as depending from allowable
