Fresh From the Bench: Latest Precedential Patent Case

CASE OF THE WEEK

Centripetal Networks, LLC v. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. et al., Appeal No. 2023-2027 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 22, 2025)

In the Court’s only precedential opinion last week, a panel of the Federal Circuit considered issues surrounding the self-recusal of an administrative patent judge (APJ) from an inter partes review before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  Among other things, the Court held that it had jurisdiction to review the Board’s otherwise unappealable institution decisions in connection with the recusal.  While the Court found no error in the timing of the APJ’s recusal or his participation in the case beforehand, it did find that the Board failed to properly consider evidence pertaining to objective indicia of non-obviousness in its final written decision.  Accordingly, the Board’s ultimate decision of unpatentability was vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

The case concerned an IPR petition initially brought by Palo Alto Networks, challenging claims of a network security patent owned by appellant Centripetal Networks.  After the Board instituted review and roughly concurrently with Centripetal’s June 2022 request for rehearing of that decision, Cisco Systems and Keysight Technologies sought to join the IPR with petitions making identical arguments to Palo Alto Networks.  By the end of September 2022, Centripetal learned that one of the assigned APJs on the Board panel—APJ McNamara—had reported ownership of between $1,001 and $15,000 in Cisco stock in a public financial disclosure.  (Applicable executive branch ethics regulations provide a de minimis conflicts exemption for holdings of $15,000 or less in securities issued by a party to administrative proceedings.)

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Editors:

Nika Aldrich, IP Group Leader, Schwabe

Jason A. Wrubleski, Shareholder