Cisco Systems, Inc. et al. v. K.Mizra LLC, Appeal Nos. 2022-2290, 2023-1183 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 19, 2024)

In the Federal Circuit’s only precedential action this week, a panel of the Court declined to dismiss an appeal after the parties had settled their dispute. The Court proceeded to issue its mandate to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for further proceedings in accordance with its opinion from earlier this year.

Appellants Cisco and Hewlett Packard had originally appealed from an inter partes review decision that rejected their challenges to a network security patent owned by K.Mizra, which decision the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded in a non-precedential decision in August. Following issuance of the opinion in appellants’ favor and the Court’s denial of a request for rehearing—but before the mandate was handed down—the appellants filed unopposed motions to dismiss the appeal pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 42(b), due to the parties’ settlement. The Court temporarily stayed issuance of the mandate pending comment from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO requested that the Court deny the motions to dismiss, and the Court agreed. Noting that the parties had not requested vacatur of the Court’s opinion, the panel determined that granting the dismissal at such a late stage “is neither required nor a proper use of the judicial system,” and denied the motions. The Court noted that “[t]he parties are of course free upon our remand to the Board to seek dismissal.”

The full opinion can be found here.

By Jason A. Wrubleski