Keysight Technologies, Inc. v. Centripetal Networks, LLC

Keysight Technologies, Inc. v. Centripetal Networks, LLC The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the Board did not abuse its discretion in finding that Keysight's petition failed to present particularized obviousness arguments for claims 6, 14, 22, 30, and 33. A header and chart listing those claims were not enough where the petition provided no claim-specific or element-by-element analysis. The decision reinforces that, after SAS, institution on all challenged claims does not cure a petitioner's failure to actually argue unpatentability for each claim in the petition. Affirmed. The challenged patent concerns protecting secured networks using packet security gateways; the appealed claims included limitations requiring a LAN switch or routing packets to a monitoring device. Keysight's petition identified claims 6, 14, 22, 30, and 33 in a header and chart but did not otherwise address how the asserted Law/Golnabi combination taught those claims' limitations. The court held the Board permissibly treated those claims as inadequately presented under 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(3) and 37 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(4), despite Keysight's later oral-argument attempt to address them. The Board was not bound by its institution-stage statement that the combination sufficiently taught the claims; it could reach a different final decision after reviewing the full record. The court declined to decide whether the claims were in fact patentable, emphasizing that the appeal turned on the Board's discretion to enforce petition presentation requirements. § 103 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential § 103 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential § 103 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential