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Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment Of Invalidity Despite Arguments Regarding The Admissibility Of The Underlying Evidence
04/23/2026On April 14, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) affirmed the District of Utah’s grant of summary judgment invalidating claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,458,689 under the pre-America-Invents-Act on-sale bar, 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). Definitive Holdings v. Powerteq, No. 2024-1761 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 14, 2026).
The patent-at-issue claimed methods and apparatuses for upgrading software in an engine controller by connecting a device that replaces portions of stock engine control software with new data blocks, while retaining an image of the original software. The district court found that the accused infringer successfully demonstrated that a third-party device, made by Hypertech Inc., had been sold to the public as early as 1996, well before the ’689 patent’s critical date, and that it embodied all the limitations of the asserted patent claims. The district court therefore granted summary judgment of invalidity.
On appeal, patentee challenged the admissibility of the deposition testimony of the CEO of Hypertech and the source code of Hypertech’s device, upon which the district court had relied in granting summary judgment.
The CAFC held that the deposition testimony was properly considered at summary judgment because a rational juror could conclude that the CEO had personal knowledge of the company’s record-keeping practices and of the relevant device’s date and source code versioning. The CAFC further held that source code commands are not hearsay because, like other orders or instructions, they are “by [their] nature, neither true nor false and thus cannot be offered for [their] truth.” Patentee’s contention that the evidence was insufficient to meet the clear-and-convincing standard was also rejected. The Court observed that “circumstantial evidence is not second-class to direct evidence" and that patentee had offered no contrary evidence of its own.
Last, the CAFC rejected patentee’s argument that the on-sale bar requires public disclosure of an invention’s inner workings at the time of sale, stating that “triggering the on-sale bar does not ‘require that the sale make the details of the invention available to the public.’” The relevant inquiry is whether the sale relates to a device that embodies the invention. Because Hypertech was “directly selling to the public the ability to perform the claimed method and to use the claimed apparatus,” the CAFC concluded that the on-sale bar applied and affirmed the judgment of invalidity.
