Cont Comp vs Markforged 3 - 1
The United States District Court for the District of Delaware has issued a ruling eliminating four patents originally asserted by Continuous Composites against Markforged in July 2021.
This court ruling confirms that Markforged does not infringe these patents and supports Markforged's position that these claims were meritless. As a result, only one patent, which was added to the case in February 2022, comprising two patent claims asserted by Continuous Composites remains.
The United States District Court for the District of Delaware reached its verdict after a recent 'Claim Construction' proceeding in which both parties presented arguments for how the key concepts of each patent should be interpreted. Based on these arguments, the Court sided with Markforged's interpretation of a phrase in the patents, with Continuous Composites conceding that the four patents, comprising of 20 patent claims, should be removed from the case.
Regarding the remaining patent and patent claims, Markforged says that it will 'continue to mount an aggressive defence of the couple remaining claims against us in this final patent.'
In February, the US Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled in favour of Continuous Composites by denying six out of seven petitions filed by Markforged for Inter Partes Review (IPR), in which it challenged the validity of claims of its foundational patents involved in its ongoing patent infringement lawsuit with Continuous Composites.
Markforged has previously been cleared of IP infringement in a case versus Desktop Metal back in 2018.
Update - April 6
A press release distributed by Continuous Composites has suggested a jury trial to settle the dispute is set to take place in December after a pretrial Markman, or Claim Construction Hearing, was held on March 8th, 2023.
In this hearing, the judge heard arguments and ruled on the meanings of six terms found in the asserted patent claims, with the judge siding with Continuous Composites on five of the six terms. The case will now be proceeding based upon the claims in Continuous Composites patent number 11,173,660.
A jury is now set to hear the case and decide whether Markforged’s 3D printers infringe the asserted claims made by Continuous Composites.
