On August 27, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down two major victories for G&S client Smart Mobile Technologies. First, the Federal Circuit affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s judgments finding that Apple had failed to prove unpatentable claims 1-13 and 27-30 of U.S. Patent No. 8,842,653 and claims 1-13 and 16 of U.S. Patent No. 9,019,946 in IPR2022-01248 and IPR2022-01249, respectively. In addition, with respect to a separate set of claims in the two patents, the Federal Circuit agreed with Smart Mobile that the Board overlooked evidence and argument submitted by Smart Mobile in opposition to Apple’s argument concerning motivation to combine Apple’s two primary references. The court vacated the portions of the Board’s judgments concerning those claims and remanded for further proceedings.
Second, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s judgment in IPR2022-01223 that Apple had failed to prove unpatentable claims 1-3 and 5 of U.S. Patent No. 9,319,075,
G&S co-founding partner Phil Graves argued the cases before the Federal Circuit. G&S is also representing Smart Mobile in pending litigation against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging infringement of the ‘653, ‘946 and ‘075 patents.