Secondary Considerations Again Fail To Shore Up Patent Estate

In IPR 2016-00036, a Bosch windshield wiper patent succumbed to Costco's challenge on grounds of obviousness. In its final written decision, the Board held claims 13, 17, and 18 of U.S. Patent No. 6,944,905 obvious. IPR 2016-00039, discussed here, is another Board decision holding obvious several claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,228,588, another member of Bosch's windshield wiper patent portfolio. Unlike the Board's finding in IPR 2016-00039 that PO failed to establish a nexus between proferred evidence and the claims sufficient to provide persuasive evidence of secondary considerations of non-obviousness, PO did establish that nexus in IPR 2016-00036. Even with that nexus, however, a preponderance of the evidence led the Board to hold the challenged claims unpatentably obvious.