Virtek Vision International ULC v. Assembly Guidance Systems, Inc., No. 22-1998 (Fed. Cir. 2024)
Annotate this Case
This case involves Virtek Vision International ULC (Virtek) and Assembly Guidance Systems, Inc. d/b/a Aligned Vision (Aligned Vision) who both appealed a decision from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board concerning U.S. Patent No. 10,052,734 owned by Virtek. The patent discloses an improved method for aligning a laser projector with respect to a work surface. The Board had held that certain claims of the patent were unpatentable, finding them to be obvious in light of certain prior art references.
Virtek appealed the Board's determination that claims 1, 2, 5, 7, and 10–13 of the patent were unpatentable. Aligned Vision cross-appealed the Board's holding that it failed to prove claims 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 of the patent were unpatentable.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Board's determination that claims 1, 2, 5, 7, and 10–13 were unpatentable, finding that there was not substantial evidence to support a motivation to combine the prior art references in the manner claimed in the patent. The court noted that it was an error to suggest that because two coordinate systems were disclosed in a prior art reference and were therefore “known,” that satisfies the motivation to combine analysis. The court affirmed the Board's determination that Aligned Vision failed to prove claims 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 would have been obvious, agreeing with the Board that Aligned Vision had failed to show a motivation to combine the references for these claims.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.