Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Ollnova Technologies Ltd. v. ecobee Technologies ULC, Nos. 2025-1045, -1046 (June 4, 2026), vacating the infringement and damages judgments in a smart-thermostat patent case and remanding for a new trial.
Ollnova sued ecobee in the Eastern District of Texas, alleging that ecobee’s smart thermostat products infringed four patents directed to wireless communications improvements in building automation systems. The patents address technical issues such as limited bandwidth, power consumption, and communications failures in wireless building automation networks. The jury found that ecobee infringed at least one asserted patent but did not identify which patent; found that ecobee had not proven the asserted claims of the ’495 patent involved only well-understood, routine, and conventional technology for purposes of Alice step two; found the asserted claims of the ’282 patent invalid; and awarded Ollnova a lump-sum royalty of $11.5 million. Both parties appealed.
The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded. The Court vacated the infringement judgment because the verdict form improperly combined all asserted patents into a single infringement question. The form asked whether ecobee infringed “ANY” asserted claim of the asserted patents, without requiring the jury to identify which patent was infringed. Applying Optis Cellular Technology, LLC v. Apple Inc., the Court held that this created an impermissible risk of a non-unanimous general verdict: different jurors could have found infringement of different patents while still answering “yes.” Because the damages award depended on the infringement verdict, the Court also vacated the $11.5 million award.
The Court also vacated and remanded the ’495 patent’s Alice step-two determination. The district court had determined at step one that the asserted ’495 patent claims were directed to an abstract idea, but the jury instructions did not identify that abstract idea or explain that the abstract idea itself could not supply the inventive concept. The Court rejected ecobee’s request for JMOL of ineligibility, however, holding that sufficient evidence supported a finding that the claimed dual-network architecture was not well-understood, routine, or conventional. The Court also affirmed rulings that the asserted claims of the ’887 and ’371 patents were not directed to abstract ideas, affirmed the denial of JMOL of non-infringement of the ’371 patent, and did not reach damages, marking, or prejudgment-interest issues in view of the remand.