Federal Circuit Review:
Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC
In this case summary of Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (2/13/2026), attorneys
Nicholas Clawson, Taylor Fairchild, and John Whitaker review the Federal Circuit’s decision on a recurring issue in patent cases arising from inter partes review (IPR): when a disputed claim phrase can be read in more than one way, how should the court determine which noun or phrase a limiting modifier actually attaches to?
The appeal arose from an IPR proceeding of a patent directed to systems and methods for streaming partly encrypted media content, where the written structure of the claim brought into question how to interpret the modifying text. The Court ultimately reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s construction of a key limitation, vacated the Board’s final written decision rejecting Netflix’s obviousness challenge, and remanded for further proceedings under the Court’s construction. The decision is notable not because it announced a new doctrinal rule, but because it gives a particularly clear example of the Federal Circuit using ordinary grammar, claim structure, the specification, and prosecution history together to resolve a claim-construction dispute in a technically dense setting. To read the summary, please visit here.
