Inventor Advocacy Groups File Amici Briefs Supporting Centripetal's Claim Construction Challenge at SCOTUS

The Alliance for U.S. Startups and Inventors for Jobs (USIJ) filed an amicus brief supporting the petition for a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court filed by patent owner Centripetal Networks, IPWatchdog reported on October 27, 2026. The filing came one week after inventor advocacy group US Inventor filed its own brief in support of Centripetal, which is challenging late changes to claim construction made by the district court without notice or an opportunity to be heard in its patent infringement case against Cisco Systems.

The case has a dramatic history. In October 2020, an Eastern District of Virginia jury awarded Centripetal more than $2 billion. In June 2022, the Federal Circuit vacated the verdict after finding that the ownership of about $5,000 in Cisco stock by the wife of U.S. District Judge Henry C. Morgan, Jr. required the judge's recusal and reassignment of the case on remand. On remand, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wilson Hanes admitted new briefing from inter partes review proceedings and, in light of that briefing, held that Cisco's networking products did not meet certain claim limitations. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Centripetal's petition, filed last month, argues that the decisions below conflict with settled norms surrounding the Markman process for claim construction.

USIJ's brief contends in a footnote that Judge Morgan did not have an actionable conflict at all, pointing to his decision to place his wife's Cisco stock in a blind trust and arguing that the suggestion he might have favored Centripetal runs counter to his 167-page opinion. US Inventor's brief recasts the case as a due process problem: if an accused infringer faced more than $2 billion in liability from a revised claim construction adopted after the record closed and without advance notice, a reasonable appellate court would vacate. Quoting former Chief Judge Giles Rich's dictum that the name of the game is the claim, the brief stresses that notice of what an adversary wants is not notice of what the court will do, and criticizes the Federal Circuit's reliance on cases such as Hamilton Beach Brands v. f'real Foods.

US Inventor argues the remedy Centripetal seeks is modest: additional briefing when a court revisits a settled claim construction after the evidentiary record has closed, which could have been provided under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 63 following Judge Morgan's recusal and would have added days, not months. Without it, the groups warn of a haze of meta-uncertainty over U.S. patent litigation that only the best-funded litigants can navigate. The petition now awaits the Supreme Court's decision on whether to grant review.

Original Link: https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/10/27/inventor-advocacy-groups-file-amici-briefs-supporting-centripetals-claim-construction-challenge-at-scotus/