Security News > 2023 > April > Appeals court spares Google from $20m patent payout over Chrome

Six years after a jury decided otherwise, Google has convinced an appeals court to reverse a $20 million judgment against the web giant after Chrome infringed some patents.

A US Court of Appeals decision [PDF], handed down Tuesday, not only reversed a 2017 ruling that found Google Chrome had ripped off four anti-malware patents, but also that three of the patents were invalid because they contained details that weren't included in the original patent.

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The case was dismissed from a federal district court in 2014, with Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap agreeing with Google that the language in the patent wording about process separation wasn't clear enough to support an infringement claim against the Chrome browser and its sandbox.

Much of the argument in the appeal ruling centered on the patents' use of the words "Web browser process." Google claimed the patents did not clearly enough describe the necessity of isolating multiple web browser processes from each other to provide a sandbox environment.

30 USC 251, which covers the reissuing of patents, states that "No new matter shall be introduced into the patent for reissue." Because the reissued patents added crucial language about web browsers, they can't be used to support a case against Chrome.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/google_20m_patent_appeal/