G+ Communications, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

G+ Communications, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the Board did not violate the APA by relying on Samsung’s oral-hearing statements because they elaborated on an issue already raised, not a new unpatentability theory. The court also held that substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding that Kwak disclosed the disputed limitation requiring each N-length predefined sequence to be mapped to N subcarriers. The decision underscores that, in IPR appeals, a party’s oral-hearing response to an issue already in the record will generally be treated as permissible elaboration, and anticipation findings supported by expert testimony and the reference’s disclosure remain hard to disturb on substantial-evidence review. Affirmed the PTAB’s final written decision finding all challenged claims unpatentable. The challenged claims cover uplink control signal transmission for 5G systems, including mapping each predefined sequence of length N to N subcarriers. G+ argued that Kwak’s Figure 44 necessarily used a comb structure, leaving only 6 subcarriers available for a 12-length sequence and therefore failing to disclose the disputed limitation. The Federal Circuit rejected G+’s APA argument, distinguishing Dell because Samsung’s oral-hearing comments addressed the already-disputed comb-structure issue and relied on language in Kwak that G+ had itself cited. Substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding that Kwak did not require Figure 44 to be a comb structure, including the reference’s permissive “may” language and Samsung’s expert testimony about distinctions between Kwak’s figures. The court affirmed the Board’s anticipation determination for the challenged claims. § 102 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential § 102 waiver / forfeiture non-precedential § 102 non-precedential