Opinions — Wednesday, October 14, 2026

The Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's final written decision holding all claims of UPL Ltd.'s U.S. Patent No. 11,445,727 unpatentable, and also affirmed the Board's denial of Syngenta Crop Protection AG's request for leave to file a sanctions motion. The patent claims fungicidal combinations consisting of benzovindiflupyr (an SDHI fungicide), mancozeb (a dithiocarbamate fungicide), and at least one additional fungicide from specified classes. The Board found certain claims anticipated by prior art references Godoy and Tobler, and found other claims obvious over De Oliveira in view of Wiglesworth, Tobler, and Godoy.

The court's analysis centered on two principal issues: whether Syngenta's petition satisfied pleading requirements under 37 C.F.R. § 42.204(b)(4), and whether the Board correctly construed "combination" and "composition" to permit sequential application of component fungicides. The court held that where a patent owner first proposes claim construction in its response, the petitioner may elaborate in reply on how originally-identified prior art passages teach the disputed limitations without violating the bar on changing theories. On claim construction, the court found the specification's explicit statement that compositions "may be applied simultaneously as a tank mix or a formulation or may be applied sequentially" compelled treating "combination" and "composition" as interchangeable terms permitting sequential application, rejecting UPL's attempt to distinguish them.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Piranha Media Distribution LLC's infringement suit against Hulu, LLC for lack of patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The asserted patents—U.S. Patent Nos. 10,986,403 and 11,463,768—claimed systems and methods for inserting advertisements into digital media content and disabling user controls to prevent skipping required ads. The district court granted Hulu's motion to dismiss, concluding that representative claim 1 was directed to the abstract idea of displaying advertisements in exchange for access to copyrighted material by receiving, organizing, and displaying data.

At Alice/Mayo step one, the court rejected Piranha's argument that the claims solved a technological problem, noting that users' ability to skip advertisements has existed across analog and digital media for decades and is not a problem uniquely arising from computer network technology. The court distinguished cases like Data Engine and Finjan, which involved problems specific to computer operation or network security, emphasizing that the claimed "intersplicer" merely organized data without improving computer capabilities. At step two, the court found the claim recited only generic computer components performing conventional functions, lacking any inventive concept to transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter. The court also held that the absence of complete preemption does not establish patent eligibility.