Opinions — Wednesday, January 7, 2026

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's determination that claims 13–23 of Viasat's U.S. Patent No. 8,966,347, directed to forward error correction systems for flash memory, are unpatentable as obvious over the Diggs and Cheng prior art references. Viasat argued that claim 13 requires a single "decoder" component to both retrieve encoded data from flash memory and process that data to correct errors, whereas in Diggs those functions are performed by distinct elements—the Controller retrieves data while the ECC Detection and Correction module processes it. The court held that substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that Diggs disclosed the claimed structure because the ECC module is incorporated within the Controller, meaning a single entity performs both functions.

The court treated the Board's decision as principally a factual finding reviewed for substantial evidence, though it noted the same result would follow under claim construction analysis. The court distinguished mechanical patent cases that presume separately recited claim elements are physically distinct components, explaining that in electronic patents functions may be performed by overlapping circuitry without violating claim requirements. Relying on the patent's specification—which expressly contemplates that the encoder, decoder, and controller "may, individually or collectively" be implemented in shared hardware—the court concluded that claim 13 does not require the decoder and controller to consist of entirely separate circuits, only that the claimed functions be performed.

The Federal Circuit affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part in this declaratory judgment action brought by Indect USA Corp. against Park Assist, LLC concerning U.S. Patent No. 9,594,956, which covers camera-based parking lot management methods. After a jury found that Indect did not directly infringe claim 1 and that Indect failed to prove invalidity or bad faith for its Lanham Act unfair competition claim, both parties appealed. The court addressed Indect's challenges to validity based on indefiniteness and lack of enablement, its objections to claim construction procedures, and its contention that the district court erred in excluding on-sale bar evidence.

The court rejected Indect's argument that claim 1 was invalid for indefiniteness and lack of enablement based on an alleged impossibility of performing all claim steps simultaneously. Applying Federal Circuit law, the court held that method claim steps need not be performed in the order written unless the claim language or logic requires it, and that skilled artisans would reasonably understand that step (h) (correcting status if vacant) and step (i) (extracting permit identifier if occupied) are conditional alternatives rather than simultaneous requirements. The court also rejected Indect's indefiniteness challenge to the "high resolution image" limitation, finding that the specification provided sufficient context—an image of sufficient resolution to extract a license plate number—to inform those skilled in the art with reasonable certainty, consistent with the principle that claim terms of degree are definite when the specification provides a measurable standard.