Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Freshub, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 22-1391 (Feb. 26, 2024), affirming the district court’s judgment of noninfringement and no inequitable conduct.
Freshub sued Amazon.com and several of its subsidiaries for infringing Freshub’s patents on voice-processing technology. Freshub asserted that Amazon’s consumer devices, such as the Amazon Echo, infringed the asserted claims when used to create and maintain a shopping list associated with the user. After trial, the jury returned a verdict of noninfringement of all asserted claims. Freshub’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law was denied, as was its motion for a new trial. Amazon had asserted an affirmative defense of inequitable conduct, alleging a petition to revive the parent application following its abandonment falsely stated that the abandonment was unintentional when it was in fact intentional. The district court held a bench trial and concluded Amazon had failed to prove inequitable conduct because it had not offered clear and convincing evidence of the falsity of the representation or intent to deceive. Freshub appealed and Amazon cross-appealed.
The Federal Circuit affirmed. On Freshub’s argument for judgment as a matter of law, the Court concluded that substantial evidence supported the jury’s verdict based on the claimed requirement that the system “identify an item corresponding to the text” and “add the identified item to a list.” Noting the claim element was not construed, the Court concluded that a reasonable understanding of the “identify an item” language is that it refers to a specific purchasable item. The Court explained that there was evidence in the record that the Amazon Alexa shopping list feature is programmed to add words to the list whether or not there exists a purchasable item corresponding to the user’s words. Therefore, a reasonable jury could have found noninfringement on that basis. On Freshub’s argument for a new trial, the Court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion because none of the alleged errors rose to the level of requiring a new trial. Finally, on Amazon’s inequitable conduct defense, the Court concluded Amazon had shown no reversible error in the district court’s rejection of the same. The Court explained that, while the evidence presented was susceptible to multiple interpretations, the district court’s finding of no deceptive intent was not clearly erroneous.
