"SynQor argued that the case before the district court was exceptional because Vicor’s infringement merits defenses, infringement equitable defenses, and counterclaims were exceptionally weak. SynQor further argued that Vicor litigated the case in an exceptional manner by filing a series of ex parte reexamination petitions after its inter partes review petition had been denied and using its counterclaims to introduce inflammatory and prejudicial allegations (including SynQor’s so-called “Kill Vicor” campaign) . . . As to enhanced damages, SynQor argued that the case was exceptional because Vicor had no good-faith belief of noninfringement or invalidity and litigated the case in bad faith. The district court granted both motions"

"As to indirect infringement, Vicor’s arguments amount to no more than an invitation for us to reweigh the evidence before the jury and make various inferences in Vicor’s favor. This we decline to do. As to willful infringement, the district court correctly found that the jury’s verdict was supported by substantial evidence. While we agree with Vicor that the standards for willful infringement and willful blindness are different, we hold that the evidence in the record, taken in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, was sufficient to prove both indirect infringement and willfulness . . . The problem with Vicor’s argument at bottom is that it relies on drawing inferences from the evidence that the jury was simply not required to make . . . The jury heard extensive evidence that Vicor monitored and reverse engineered SynQor’s patent-marked products . . . was made aware of SynQor’s position that Vicor’s products were not a noninfringing alternative . . . and chose to indemnify Cisco rather than provide a legal opinion that its products did not infringe . . . On this record, the “requisite intent to induce infringement may be inferred from all the circumstances.”"

"locating encryption information that identifies encrypted portions of frames of video within the requested portions of the selected stream of protected video;"

"The principle is that (where commas or other textual signals are not used) the modifier is presumptively understood to be tied to the nearest available semantically plausible modificand."

"Netflix’s interpretation thus makes a straightforward and coherent whole out of the final three limitations, which have the focus of the parties’ arguments about the interpretive choice at issue . . . The specification does not overcome the presumptive meaning . . . Netflix does not dispute that several embodiments described in the specification involve the location of encryption information within the requested portions of the selected stream of protected video . . . But we agree with Netflix that the specification does not limit the invention to that arrangement—that, indeed, it positively indicates that the invention covers (though it does not elaborate on) embodiments in which encryption information is not so located . . . The prosecution history provides one additional bit of support for reading the specification as confirming that, as Netflix urges . . . U.S. Patent No. 9,621,522 is the grandparent of the ’588 patent . . . Claim 1 of the ’522 patent calls for “DRM Information” (a type of encryption information) to be located within a “top level index file” (“identif[ying] a plurality of alternative streams of protected video” stored in container files), which is different from being located within the “requested portions of selected streams.”"

"The Board is required to “articulate a satisfactory explanation . . . [that] enables the court to exercise its duty to review the [Board’s] decisions to assess whether those decisions are ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or . . . unsupported by substantial evidence.’” . . . Here, the Board’s silence on the IM limitation of claim 15 does not meet this requirement. Claim 15 explicitly recites generating a hot link message either as an SMS message or an IM message. A petitioner can therefore satisfy either of these two disjunctive limitations to show unpatentability.

1. "First, Ingevity asserts a statutory patent misuse defense under § 271(d) of the Patent Act supported by the related “staple article” doctrine;"
2. "Second, Ingevity argues that its purported tying conduct is immune from antitrust liability under the patent laws and Noerr-Pennington"; and
3. "Third, Ingevity argues that the jury’s antitrust damages award should be vacated because BASF failed to disaggregate the damages caused by Ingevity’s unlawful conduct from those resulting from its lawful patent enforcement and that such disaggregation was required and feasible"

Regarding 1), plaintiff argues that its alleged "tying" was merely control over of contributorily infringing product components ("35 U.S.C. § 271(d) . . . expressly shields conduct that would otherwise be characterized as tying or exclusionary when it is undertaken to prevent contributory infringement as defined in § 271(c)."). However, CAFC finds that the jury considered the factual question whether the articles were contributorily infringing product components and had adequate grounds to conclude that they were not ("That testimony regarding honeycomb use in non-infringing air-intake systems, together with the Park patent, gave the jury sufficient reason to discount Ingevity executives’ testimony and favor BASF’s evidence . . . the jury’s verdict rested on permissible inferences and credibility determinations supported by the record, substantial evidence supports the finding that Ingevity’s honeycombs are staple goods").

Regarding 2), CAFC considers the argument here different from what was argued below ("Ingevity’s immunity argument is no longer in the alternative; it now subsumes its patent misuse defense . . . We may not consider such new and improperly preserved arguments . . . At summary judgment, Ingevity’s immunity argument was based on the theory that what BASF had alleged as tying conduct was actually mere patent enforcement activity and thus immune, and it further agreed that conduct beyond mere enforcement activity was not immune . . . But now, for the first time on appeal, Ingevity erases that distinction . . . It argues that even if the jury found that its honeycomb products are staple goods, its tying conduct is still immune."). Accordingly, CAFC sets the new argument aside (n.b., the DCT's caution, cited approvingly by CAFC, that "the Noerr-Pennington doctrine will [not] help Ingevity if BASF proves the Ingevity product . . . is a staple article of commerce").

Regarding 3), CAFC agrees with the DCT that "“[t]o establish an antitrust injury, BASF was not required to show that the accused conduct was the sole cause of its injury; BASF needed to show that Ingevity’s conduct was a material or substantial cause of its injury.”" As the jury instructions and conclusions were consistent with that analysis ("In light of this evidence and Dr. Mathur’s reliance on a broad set of record documents rather than speculative projections, the jury could reasonably have found both material causation and non-speculative damages"), CAFC affirms.