Banner & Witcoff was recognized by Law360 for successfully representing NIKE, Inc., in inter partes reviews brought by adidas AG against two NIKE patents related to its FLYKNIT technology.
Christopher Renk, Michael Harris, and Aaron Bowling represented NIKE in these proceedings. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board concluded that, based on the arguments and evidence the parties presented, adidas failed to demonstrate the prior art rendered obvious any of NIKE’s patent claims. More specifically, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board agreed with NIKE that adidas failed to prove why and how a person of ordinary skill in the art would combine the teachings of the prior art to achieve NIKE’s claimed inventions. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board also agreed with NIKE that combining the teachings of the prior art would render the prior art inoperable for its intended purpose and, thus, the prior art could not be combined to achieve NIKE’s claimed inventions.
The proceedings are IPR2016-00921 and IPR2016-00922. Click here and here to read the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s final written decisions.
Click here to read the Law360 article. A subscription is required.
Posted: November 2, 2017
