The Federal Circuit has issued its highly-anticipated decision in Lighting Ballast Control LLC v. Philips Electronics North America Corp., 2012-1014 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 21, 2014). The en banc decision of Chief Judge Rader and Judges Newman, Lourie, Dyk, Prost, Moore, O’Malley, Reyna, Wallach, and Taranto holds that the de novo standard of review should continue to apply to claim construction issues. As the Court summarized:
“[W]e apply the principles of stare decisis, and confirm the Cybor standard of de novo review of claim construction, whereby the scope of the patent grant is reviewed as a matter of law. After fifteen years of experience with Cybor, we conclude that the court should retain plenary review of claim construction, thereby providing national uniformity, consistency, and finality to the meaning and scope of patent claims. The totality of experience has confirmed that Cybor is an effective implementation of Markman II, and that the criteria for departure from stare decisis are not met.”
Delaware IP Law Blog 