Ollnova Technologies Ltd. v. ecobee Technologies ULC

Ollnova Technologies Ltd. v. ecobee Technologies ULC The Federal Circuit vacated the infringement and damages judgments because the verdict form used a single infringement question for all asserted patents, creating an impermissible risk of a non-unanimous verdict. It also vacated and remanded the '495 patent § 101 ruling for Alice step-two proceedings because the jury was not instructed on the abstract idea or that the abstract idea could not supply the inventive concept, while affirming § 101 eligibility at Alice step one for the '887 and '371 patents and affirming denial of JMOL of noninfringement for the '371 patent. The decision reinforces that multi-patent infringement verdict forms need patent-by-patent liability questions and that any jury role in Alice step two must be framed by the abstract idea identified at step one. Affirmed-in-part, dismissed-in-part, and vacated and remanded; new trial required on infringement and damages, and further proceedings required on Alice step two for the '495 patent. Following Optis, the court held that asking whether ecobee infringed “ANY” asserted claim across four patents was an abuse of discretion because jurors could agree only that some patent was infringed without agreeing on the same patent. The court rejected forfeiture: ecobee preserved the verdict-form issue by objecting that the form should list each patent separately, and the district court addressed unanimity on the merits. For the '495 patent, the district court had found the claims directed to an abstract idea but did not tell the jury what that idea was or that it could not supply the inventive concept; that error was not harmless. The court refused to enter JMOL of § 101 invalidity for the '495 patent because evidence, including expert testimony about the claimed dual-network architecture operating free of communications from a second network, supported a factual dispute at Alice step two. The court affirmed that the '887 and '371 patent claims were not directed to abstract ideas because they recited specific wireless BAS communication techniques addressing bandwidth, power, and communications-failure problems. § 101 infringement damages remand waiver / forfeiture precedential § 101 infringement damages remand waiver / forfeiture precedential § 101 infringement damages remand