Error In Prior Art Did Not Render Invention Obvious

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Law Firm: Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Patent
• Author: Mr Irah H. Donner
• Published date: 23 February 2023

In LG Electronics Inc. v. Immervision, Inc.,¹ the Federal Circuit held that an obvious error in a prior art reference was not considered a teaching. The court explained that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have disregarded or corrected the apparent typographical or similar error in the prior art reference. The remainder of the prior art reference would continue to be considered a potentially relevant prior art disclosure. Judge Newman dissented, arguing the error was not discovered until an expert spent a dozen hours of experimentation and calculation, and therefore, the error was not apparent.

The Federal Circuit framed the question on appeal as follows:

This appeal requires us to consider how to treat a prior art reference in which the alleged teaching of a claim element would be understood by a skilled artisan not to be an actual teaching, but rather to be an obvious error of a typographical or similar nature.²

U.S. Patent No. 6,844,990 described capturing and presenting digital panoramic images using superwide-angle lenses with linear image point distribution functionality. This linearity constrained image quality to the image sensor resolution used when capturing the original image. The '990 patent claimed to enhance the resolution of specific areas of a digital panoramic image without requiring more pixels per unit of area of the image sensor.

The '990 patent disclosed taking a digital panoramic image via an objective lens with a nonlinear image point distribution function that expanded specific areas of the image and reduced other areas. The nonlinearity of the image could be adjusted to create the final panoramic image. The claims recited that the lens 'compresses the center of the image and the edges of the image and expands an intermediate zone of the image located between the center and the edges of the image.'³ Dependent claim 5, which depended from cancelled claim 1, stated the following:

1. (Cancelled) A method for capturing a digital panoramic image, by projecting a panorama onto an image sensor by means of a panoramic objective lens, the panoramic objective lens having an image point distribution function that is not linear relative to the field angle of object points of the panorama, the distribution function having a maximum divergence of at least '10% compared to a linear distribution function, such that the panoramic image obtained has at least one substantially expanded zone and at least one substantially compressed zone.

...

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the objective lens compresses the center of...