United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

JODI A. SCHWENDIMANN, FKA JODI A. DALVEY, Appellant

v.

NEENAH, INC., AVERY PRODUCTS CORPORATION, Appellees

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JODI A. SCHWENDIMANN Appellant

v.

NEENAH, INC., Appellee ______________________

2022-1333, 2022-1334, 2022-1427, 2022-1432 ______________________

Appeals from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in Nos. IPR2020- 00628, IPR2020-00629, IPR2020-00634, IPR2020-00915. ______________________

Decided: October 6, 2023 ______________________ Case: 22-1333 Document: 63 Page: 2 Filed: 10/06/2023

2 SCHWENDIMANN v. NEENAH, INC.

DEVAN V. PADMANABHAN, Padmanabhan & Dawson PLLC, Minneapolis, MN, argued for appellant. Also repre- sented by MICHELLE DAWSON, BRITTA LOFTUS, PAUL J. ROBBENNOLT.

JOSEPH J. RICHETTI, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, New York, NY, argued for appellees. Also repre- sented by ALEXANDER DAVID WALDEN; K. LEE MARSHALL, San Francisco, CA. ______________________

Before PROST, CLEVENGER, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges. CLEVENGER, Circuit Judge. Jodi A. Schwendimann owns U.S. Patent Nos. RE41,623 (the “’623 patent”), 7,749,581 (the “’581 patent”), 7,754,042 (the “’042 patent”), and 7,766,475 (the “’475 pa- tent”) (collectively, the “Appealed Patents”). Ms. Schwend- imann appeals from four final written decisions of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) holding all claims of the ’623 patent, 1 ’042 patent, 2 and ’475 patent 3 and claims 1–6, 8–21, and 24–31 of the ’581 patent 4 (the “Challenged Claims”) un- patentable as obvious in view of asserted prior art.

1 Neenah, Inc. v. Schwendimann, No. IPR2020- 00628, 2021 WL 4877521 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 1, 2021). 2 Neenah, Inc. v. Schwendimann, No. IPR2020- 00629, 2021 WL 6297820 (P.T.A.B. Sept. 10, 2021). 3 Neenah, Inc. v. Schwendimann, No. IPR2020- 00915, 2021 WL 5203293 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 1, 2021) (“Deci- sion”). 4 Neenah, Inc. v. Schwendimann, No. IPR2020- 00634, 2021 WL 6299553 (P.T.A.B. Sept. 10, 2021). Case: 22-1333 Document: 63 Page: 3 Filed: 10/06/2023

SCHWENDIMANN v. NEENAH, INC. 3

After Ms. Schwendimann asserted the Appealed Pa- tents, a fifth, related patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,771,554 (the “’554 patent”), and three other patents from a different, un- related patent family against Neenah, Inc. and Avery Prod- ucts Corporation (collectively, “Neenah”), 5 Neenah filed petitions for inter partes review with the Board for the Challenged Claims in the Appealed Patents and claims in the ’554 patent. Neenah’s petitions argued the claims were rendered obvious on multiple separate grounds based on different combinations of prior art, including grounds in each petition based on U.S. Patent No. 5,798,179 (“Kronzer”) in view of U.S. Patent No. 5,655,476 (“Oez”). Although the Board did not institute an inter partes review for the ’554 patent, the Board instituted inter partes review for all the Challenged Claims in the Appealed Patents and found them unpatentable as obvious over Kronzer in view of Oez. For the reasons below, we affirm. BACKGROUND A. The Appealed Patents The Appealed Patents relate to transfer sheets and methods for transferring images onto dark-colored fabrics. ’475 patent col. 1 ll. 17–19. 6 Multi-layer image transfer sheets for transferring im