In SAS Institute, Inc. v. ComplementSoft, LLC (Fed. Cir. June 10, 2016), the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a PTAB finding of patentability due to a changed claim construction. The PTAB first construed “graphical representations of data flows” in the institution decision, but used a significantly different construction for the final written decision. The Federal Circuit recognized the PTAB may use a different construction for the final written decision, but neither party had requested the significant alterations adopted by the PTAB. Instead, both parties had accepted the institution decision’s claim construction, except for a dispute about one word. As neither party could reasonably anticipate the changed claim construction, the parties needed to be given an opportunity to respond to the PTAB’s new claim construction.
