Google's own engineers called the button "genius." Then, the Patent Office found, Google copied it.

Google just lost a Federal Circuit appeal over smartphone VR-viewer patents, and the evidence that sank its case is something every product business can collect.

The patents came out of DODOcase, a company founded by inventor Patrick Buckley. The patented feature was a button on the outside of a VR viewer that lets you tap your phone's touchscreen while the phone sits inside the housing.

Google challenged the patents at the Patent Office, arguing the invention was obvious. The Patent Office found that, on the prior art alone, an engineer could have combined the references. But it also found that Google's own VR viewer copied DODOcase's product and Buckley's prototype, and it gave that copying heavy weight. Three Google engineers had also emailed Buckley, during business talks, about his prototype: "That button is genius!" and "That's an ingenious button!" The Patent Office counted that as industry praise.

On November 5, the Federal Circuit affirmed. In its words, it could not "say as a matter of law that Google's evidence of obviousness is strong enough to outweigh DDC's evidence of nonobviousness."

What a business owner can take from this:

1. Real-world evidence can beat the "it was obvious" argument. How the market and your competitors reacted to your product is part of the legal analysis.

2. Copying has to be of your specific product, not just a competing one. The court repeated that not every competing product is evidence of copying, so keep side-by-side comparisons of your product and the knock-off.

3. Save the compliments. Praise from a third party about your product counted, even from a company you were in talks with, though the Patent Office gave it less weight because of the business relationship.

4. Keep your prototypes, demo videos and the emails around them. This case turned on exactly that paper trail.

Patents protect the idea. The record you build around the idea helps protect the patent.

Google LLC v. DDC Technology, LLC, Nos. 2025-1315, -1316, -1330 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 5, 2026) (precedential opinion by Reyna, J., joined by Hughes and Stark, JJ.), affirming PTAB decisions in IPR2023-00707, -00709, -00711 (U.S. Patent Nos. 9,420,075; 10,528,199; 11,093,001)

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