In 2017, Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) filed two petitions requesting
inter parties review (“IPR”) of U.S. Patent No. 9,083,997 (“the ’997 patent”), with the first petition directed to claims 1-19 and the second petition directed to claims 20-35. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) issued two substantially similar Final Written Decisions (IPR2017-00829, IPR2017-00830) that found all claims of the ’997 patent unpatentable as obvious. The ’997 patent’s assignee, VidStream LLC (“VidStream”), appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“the CAFC”) on the grounds that the primary art reference cited by Twitter and relied on by the Board did not qualify as prior art.