Rare Breed's forced-reset trigger patent campaign has reached the Federal Circuit, with the court now weighing an appeal that could shape the scope of its enforcement effort. The case stems from a lower-court ruling that included what Patently-O describes as a misstep under the O2 Micro precedent, but the appellate panel may not need to dwell on that error to resolve the dispute.
A central factor in the campaign's scale is a deal with the Department of Justice, which reportedly fueled the consolidation of 95 cases into a multidistrict litigation. That backing has allowed Rare Breed to pursue infringement claims broadly across the industry, though the merits of the underlying patent claims remain contested.
The appeal's key issue is claim construction of the phrase "substantially in battery," a limitation that determines whether accused trigger devices fall within the patent's reach. Patently-O suggests that even if the lower court misapplied O2 Micro, the outcome may hinge on how the Federal Circuit interprets that language, making the earlier error potentially immaterial to the final decision.