Zilkr Cloud Technologies, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

Zilkr Cloud Technologies, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. The Federal Circuit held that the Board erred by construing the “request to provision” and “activate” limitations broadly enough to cover management of existing services; read in light of the specification, the claim requires adding a new service. The court affirmed the Board’s finding and APA analysis as to the separate “utilized by” limitation. The decision reinforces that PTAB claim constructions must account for how disputed terms operate together in the claim and how the specification consistently uses those terms. Vacated-in-part, affirmed-in-part, and remanded. The obviousness determination was vacated as to the erroneous constructions of the “request to provision” and “activate” limitations, but affirmed as to the Board’s treatment of limitation [1.3]. The patent concerns a unified services platform that uses a user’s telephone number as a common subscriber identifier across communication services. The Board construed “request to provision” and “activate” to include adding new services or managing existing subscribed services; the Federal Circuit rejected that construction. The court relied on the specification’s repeated use of “activating” only in the context of adding new services and its separate treatment of managing or accessing existing services. The court affirmed that substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding that Bodart satisfied the “server is utilized by a first provider” limitation under the Board’s unchallenged construction of “utilize.” The court also held that the Board’s explanation for limitation [1.3] satisfied the APA, but did not address APA challenges to limitations [1.4] and [1.7] in view of the claim-construction remand. § 103 claim construction remand non-precedential § 103 claim construction remand non-precedential claim construction § 103 remand non-precedential