CAFC Delivers Blow to Apple in Appeal of PTAB Disputes with Smart Mobile

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit delivered a mixed ruling in Apple's inter partes review challenges against Smart Mobile Technologies' patents covering mobile wireless devices with multiple transmitter/receiver components. The CAFC affirmed PTAB decisions rejecting Apple's obviousness challenges to most claims across three patents, agreeing with Smart Mobile's narrower construction of "multiplexed signals." However, the court vacated and remanded portions where PTAB failed to address Smart Mobile's "bottlenecking" argument regarding data transmission slowdowns.