## Facts

- United Technologies Corporation (UTC) owned U.S. Patent No. 8,511,605, directed to aircraft gas turbine engine technology involving geared-fan architecture and a variable area fan nozzle.
- General Electric Company (GE), a competitor, petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) challenging claims 1–2 (anticipation) and claims 7–11 (obviousness).
- After institution, UTC disclaimed claims 1–2; only claims 7–11 remained.
- The Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a final written decision concluding GE failed to prove claims 7–11 unpatentable for obviousness.
- GE appealed the adverse PTAB decision.
- UTC moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of Article III standing.
- GE asserted injury based on impaired ability to compete in aircraft engines, increased R&D costs to design around the patent, and alleged inability to offer a geared-fan engine to Boeing without infringement risk.
- GE did not identify a specific lost contract, a licensing demand, an enforcement threat, or specific evidence tying quantified expenditures or concrete product plans to the challenged claims.

## Issues

1. Whether an IPR petitioner has Article III standing to appeal an adverse PTAB decision based on alleged competitive harm and design-around costs when there is no suit or explicit threat of enforcement and no concrete plan to practice the challenged patent claims.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because GE failed to establish Article III standing.
- The court held that participation in an IPR, and the availability of a statutory right to petition, do not themselves satisfy Article III standing on appeal.
- GE’s alleged competitive harm was too speculative without concrete evidence of near-term infringing conduct, a credible enforcement risk, or a specific economic injury traceable to the challenged patent claims.
- GE’s assertions of increased R&D spending were insufficiently supported and not specifically linked to the outcome of the appeal.
- IPR estoppel consequences were not, by themselves, an injury in fact.
- The court did not reach the merits of the PTAB’s obviousness determination; the PTAB decision remained undisturbed.

## Legal Principles

- An appellant from a PTAB IPR decision must independently satisfy Article III standing (injury in fact, traceability, and redressability).
- Competitive harm can constitute injury in fact only when it is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent, rather than conjectural.
- A generalized desire to clear a patent from the marketplace, without evidence of likely infringing activity or a credible enforcement risk, is insufficient to establish injury in fact.
- Alleged design-around or R&D costs may support standing only if supported by specific evidence and tied to the challenged patent claims and to redress from the requested appellate relief.
- Statutory IPR estoppel, standing alone and without a concrete infringement controversy, does not establish injury in fact.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit dismissed GE’s appeal from an adverse IPR decision because GE failed to show a concrete, non-speculative injury traceable to UTC’s patent claims and redressable by invalidation, where GE lacked concrete plans to practice the claims, faced no enforcement threat, and did not substantiate specific economic harm.


Gen. Elec. Co. v. United Techs. Corp., 928 F.3d 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2019)