Black & Decker Inc. v. Robert Bosch Tool Corp., No. 04 C 7955, 2006 WL 3883286 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 18, 2006) (St. Eve, J.).*
Judge St. Eve granted judgment as a matter of law for plaintiff, holding that the jury’s findings of invalidity and obviousness were not supported by legally sufficient evidence. At trial, defendant introduced an article describing a prior art radio as 102(b) prior art using its expert. But the expert testified that one of the claim elements was missing. Defendant argued that pictures of the radio that were not used in the article, showed the device. But the Court held that defendant could not piece together the article, testimony and pictures to prove that the article disclosed all elements of the claimed invention. The jury’s obviousness finding was not supported by legally sufficient evidence because defendant did not present clear and convincing evidence of a motivation to combine its obviousness prior art references.
* You can find much more on this case in the Blog’s archives.