The Patent Trial and Appeals Board on Wednesday upheld an America Invents Act challenge by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and HTC Corp. to the validity of a content-streaming patent held by Affinity Labs of Texas LLC, saying the electronics manufacturers presented enough evidence to show the challenged claims are not patentable.
In a final written decision in an inter partes review, a three-judge PTAB panel held that Samsung and HTC sufficiently showed that Affinity Labs' U.S. Patent Number 7,953,390 was obvious over the prior art under Section 103 of the Patent Act.

The PTAB said it determined the petitioners have "shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 16, 19, and 20 of the ’390 patent are unpatentable."

The '390 patent is generally directed to a delivery system for digitally stored content. The challenged claim terms for the patent relate to a method for transferring data through a USB cable to a portable device while simultaneously recharging the battery in that device.

In its ruling, the PTAB found that Samsung and HTC were able to marshal enough evidence demonstrating that the '390 patent was obvious over the combination of two prior art patents, the so-called Galensky and Bork references.

But the panel did reject an alternate theory of invalidity posed by the electronics companies, saying it was not persuaded that the challenged claims of the '390 patent would have been obvious over a combination of Bork and the so-called Hitson and Fuller prior art references.

And although it declined to address the issue, the PTAB noted that Affinity Labs contended that the present IPR proceeding deprived it of its constitutional right to a jury trial. While Affinity did not ask that the board rule on the constitutionality of IPR proceedings in its decision, the board said the patent owner raised the issue in order to preserve the argument on appeal