Amsted Rail Company, Inc. v. John A. Squires, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
AMSTED RAIL COMPANY, INC.,
Appellant
v.
JOHN A. SQUIRES, UNDER SECRETARY OF
COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES
PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE,
Intervenor
______________________
2025-1063
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2023-
00540.
______________________
Decided: July 24, 2026
______________________
RYAN N ORTH MILLER, Fox Rothschild LLP, Philadel-
phia, PA, argued for appellant. Also represented by J EFF
E. SCHWARTZ, Washington, DC.
SHEHLA WYNNE, Office of the Solicitor, United States
Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, argued for
intervenor. Also represented by MONICA B ARNES L ATEEF ,
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AMSTED RAIL COMPANY , INC. v. SQUIRES 2
N ICHOLAS T HEODORE MATICH , IV, ROBERT MCBRIDE,
ROBERT J. MC MANUS .
______________________
Before P ROST , CHEN, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
CHEN, Circuit Judge.
Amsted Rail Co., Inc. (Amsted) appeals a final written
decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) de-
termining certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,137,915
(’915 patent) unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103 and deny-
ing Amsted’s motion to amend. Hum Indus. Tech., Inc. v.
Amsted Rail Co., Inc., No. IPR2023-00540, 2024 WL
3678789 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 6, 2024) (Decision). We see no error
in the Board’s claim construction, factual findings, or de-
nial of the motion to amend. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
The ’915 patent claims systems and methods of detect-
ing and analyzing operational anomalies in trains. ’915 pa-
tent col. 1. ll. 13–17. Claim 1 recites:
1. A system for detecting operational anomalies on
a train consist or railcar comprising:
(a) one or more communication management units
mounted on one or more railcars;
(b) one or more sensors located on said one or more
railcars configured to sense an operational param-
eter of said one or more railcars, said sensors being
in communication with said one or more communi-
cation management units, wherein the one or more
sensors comprise one or more sensors configured to
measure accelerations of the railcar; and
(c) one or more filters configured to filter at least a
portion of the accelerations,
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AMSTED RAIL COMPANY , INC. v. SQUIRES 3
wherein said communication management units
perform the functions of:
(i) collecting data regarding said one or
more railcar operational parameters;
(ii) analyzing said collected data for trends
or events indicative of an anomalous oper-
ational condition; and
(iii) communicating a message to a remote
receiver when said trend or event is de-
tected.
Id. at claim 1 (emphases added). Claim 25 depends from
claim 1, “further comprising one or more wireless sensor
nodes . . . wherein one or more of the wireless sensor nodes
comprises a microprocessor configured to execute firmware
. . . wherein the firmware comprises one or more software
filters . . . .” Id. at claim 25 (emphasis added).
Hum Industrial Technology, Inc. (Petitioner) peti-
tioned for inter partes review, arguing claims 1, 21–30, 36,
and 37 of the ’915 patent are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. Decision, 2024 WL 3678789, at *1. After institution,
Amsted filed a contingent motion to amend to substitute
claims 38–48 in the event any challenged claims were held
unpatentable. Id. The Board ultimately held all chal-
lenged claims unpatentable and denied Amsted’s motion to
amend. Id. at *38. In so doing, the Board relied on four
prior art references: Armitage,1 Barone,2 LeFebvre, and
Winfree.3 Id.
1 U.S. Patent Application Publication No.
2011/0282540 (Armitage).
2 U.S. Patent Application Publication No.
2007/0208841 (Barone).
3 LeFebvre and Winfree are not relevant to our anal-
ysis.
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AMSTED RAIL COMPANY , INC. v. SQUIRES 4
Amsted appeals. Petitioner withdrew from this appeal
after reaching a settlement with Amsted. ECF No. 14 at 1.
The Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Prop-
erty and Director of the United States Patent and Trade-
mark Office (Director) intervened to defend the Board’s
decision. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1295(a)(4)(A).
D ISCUSSION
We review the Board’s claim construction de novo and
its factual findings for substantial evidence. HD Silicon
Sols. LLC v. Microchip Tech. Inc., 127 F.4th 919, 921 (Fed.
Cir. 2025) (citation omitted).
Amsted first argues that the Board erred in its con-
struction of claim 1, because, in its view, claim 1’s sensor
must first “sense” or “measure” the accelerations before the
filter “filter[s] at least a portion of the accelerations.” ’915
patent at claim 1; Appellant Br. 32–33. We disagree.
The Board rejected Amsted’s position that claim 1 fil-
ters “already measured accelerations.” Decision, 2024 WL
3678789, at *11. We agree with the Board that claim 1 does
not require any specific order for the performance of the
sensor and filter functions. Moreover, as the Board ob-
served, Amsted’s construction would clash with dependent
claim 23, which recites that “the one or more filters” of
claim 1 “are disposed to remove the undesirable accelera-
tions before the undesirable accelerations reach the one or
more sensors that are configured to measure accelera-
tions.” ’915 patent at claim 23; see also id. at dependent
claim 26 (“The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more
filters comprise one or more mechanical filters.”). Depend-
ent claim 23 therefore lends strong support to the Board’s
construction that claim 1’s filter function need not occur af-
ter the sensor function. See Baxalta Inc. v. Genentech, Inc.,
972 F.3d 1341, 1345–46 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (rejecting a con-
struction that would “render several dependent claims
meaningless”) (citation omitted). We are unpersuaded by
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AMSTED RAIL COMPANY , INC. v. SQUIRES 5
Amsted’s assertion that claim 23 was drafted in error, a
proposition for which Amsted cites no record support. See
Appellant Br. 36. Accordingly, the Board did not err in con-
struing claim 1.
Amsted next argues that the Board lacked substantial
evidence to find a motivation to combine Armitage and Bar-
one. Appellant Br. 42–46. We disagree. When analyzing
motivation to combine Armitage and Barone, the Board re-
lied on Barone’s “removal of unwanted data.” Decision,
2024 WL 3678789, at *13. The Board explained that Bar-
one’s data filtering technique “could be predictably applied
to Armitage’s system . . . with the benefit of improving data
processing.” Id. Substantial evidence supports the Board’s
finding, as the Board reasonably credited Petitioner’s ex-
pert, Mr. Ricca, who opined that a skilled artisan would
have been motivated to employ Barone’s principle of re-
moving “unwanted data” in Armitage’s system. Id. (citing
J.A. 1038 ¶ 67).4
Amsted further argues that the Board lacked substan-
tial evidence in finding that the Armitage-Barone combi-
nation disclosed limitation 25[d], which requires a
“software filter” executed on “firmware.” Appellant Br. 46;
’915 patent at claim 25. Amsted specifies that the Board
failed to explain why Barone’s analog filtering could oper-
ate on Armitage’s digital firmware. Appellant Br. 48–49.
The Board agreed with Amsted that Barone disclosed “an-
alog, not digital” filtering, but further explained that Am-
sted misunderstood Petitioner’s argument, which was that
a skilled artisan would have implemented Barone’s general
filtering principle in Armitage’s existing firmware because
4 Because we affirm the Board’s findings regarding a
motivation to combine Armitage and Barone to filter data,
we need not address Amsted’s argument as to whether
Armitage discloses filtering.
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AMSTED RAIL COMPANY , INC. v. SQUIRES 6
a skilled artisan would understand how to implement Bar-
one’s filtering principles “electronically, mechanically, and
digitally.” Decision, 2024 WL 3678789, at *16 (citing J.A.
1044 ¶ 79). Therefore, notwithstanding Barone’s analog
filtering, substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclu-
sion that a skilled artisan would understand Barone’s gen-
eral principle of removing unwanted data would be
performed by a software filter executed on Armitage’s firm-
ware. And contrary to Amsted’s contentions, this theory
was advanced in the petition. See J.A. 276 (incorporating
by reference J.A. 264–68).
Finally, we address Amsted’s argument that the Board
incorrectly denied its motion to amend with substitute
claims after concluding they would be unpatentable under
§ 103. Appellant Br. 51, 54–56. Substitute claim 38 intro-
duces three new limitations: a “tri-axis sensor configured
to measure accelerations . . . along a plurality of axes,” a
“plurality of filters,” and a “plurality of detectors.” Deci-
sion, 2024 WL 3678789, at *27–28 (strikethrough and un-
derlining omitted). Amsted contends that Armitage is only
configured to measure accelerations in one axis and there-
fore fails to teach measuring, filtering, and detecting accel-
erations in all three axes. Appellant Br. 54–55.
Substantial evidence supports the Board’s findings.
The Board relied on Armitage paragraph 45 and
Mr. Ricca’s opinion to conclude that a skilled artisan would
understand Armitage’s 3-D accelerometer to measure ac-
celerations in all three axes. See Decision, 2024 WL
3678789, at *32 (first citing Armitage ¶ 45; and then citing
J.A. 3168 ¶ 29). Armitage paragraph 45 explains that “[i]n
some examples” its 3-D accelerometer monitors “a single
axis.” J.A. 1137. The Board reasonably found this means
that Armitage monitors more than one axis in other in-
stances and its accelerometer is not exclusively configured
to monitor only one axis. Mr. Ricca also opined that the
pluralities of filters and detectors require simple duplica-
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AMSTED RAIL COMPANY , INC. v. SQUIRES 7
tions of hardware that would be obvious to a skilled arti-
san. Decision, 2024 WL 3678789, at *32; see also J.A. 2929
¶¶ 33–34. Accordingly, we see no error in the denial of the
motion to amend.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Amsted’s remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive or forfeited. For the foregoing
reasons, we affirm.
AFFIRMED
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