An administrative tribunal carved up a Fitbit LLC patent covering smartwatches that track a user’s calorie burn, heart rate, number of steps, and other biometric activity, invalidating some of the patent’s claims but keeping others alive.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled Monday that roughly one-third of the claims in US Patent No. 8,868,377—which covers “portable monitoring devices” and methods of operating and controlling them—are obvious and anticipated by previous health-tracking inventions. Koninklijke Philips NV and its North American unit asked the PTAB to strike the patent claims in February 2021.
The ‘377 patent is one of two …
Source: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/fitbit-loses-part-of-biometric-smartwatch-patent-at-tribunal
