The federal patent appeals court denied Vonage’s (VG) request this afternoon to send the patent case it lost last month to Verizon (VZ) immediately back for retrial in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Tuesday.
The opinion was short and self-explanatory enough that, instead of linking to it, I’ll just paste it:
IT IS ORDERED THAT:
(1) The motion is denied.
(2) The issues sought to be raised by counsel may be included in their briefs on the merits.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (which hears all patent appeals) means that Vonage will still be able to raise on appeal the question of whether the case needs to be retried in light of the new test of obviousness announced in KSR International v. Teleflex. Similarly, Verizon will still be able to argue in response that that ruling is irrelevant, because, among other things, Vonage failed to preserve the issue for appeal. (See the three previous posts in this blog for more detail.)
Vonage’s full appeal will now be argued on June 25, in keeping with the expedited schedule the court set up on April 24. Vonage’s survival appears to be at stake.