NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________

MOJAVE DESERT HOLDINGS, LLC,

Appellant

v.

CROCS, INC.,

Appellee

______________________

2020-1167

______________________

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 95/002,100.

______________________

Decided: February 18, 2021

______________________

MATT BERKOWITZ, Shearman & Sterling LLP, Menlo 

Park, CA, argued for appellant. Also represented by YUE 

WANG; PATRICK ROBERT COLSHER, MARK A. HANNEMANN,

THOMAS R. MAKIN, New York, NY; LAURA KIERAN 

KIECKHEFER, San Francisco, CA.

 MICHAEL BERTA, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, 

San Francisco, CA, argued for appellee. Also represented 

by SEAN MICHAEL CALLAGY; MARK CHRISTOPHER FLEMING, 

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston, MA; 

BENJAMIN S. FERNANDEZ, Denver, CO.

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2 MOJAVE DESERT HOLDINGS, LLC v. CROCS, INC.

 ______________________

Before NEWMAN, DYK, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Mojave Desert Holdings, LLC1 appeals from a final 

written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board 

(“Board”) following inter partes reexamination of U.S. Patent No. D517,789 (“’789 patent”). See U.S.A. Dawgs, Inc. 

v. Crocs, Inc., 2019 Pat. App. LEXIS 6418 (P.T.A.B. Sept.

10, 2019) (“Board Decision”). Mojave argues that the Board 

legally erred in its analysis of the prior art. Because we 

discern no reversible error, we affirm. 

I.

A.

The ’789 patent, a design patent titled “Footwear,” issued on March 28, 2006. The patent claims “[t]he ornamental design for footwear, as shown and described” in the

patent’s seven figures. ’789 patent, claim 1. Figures 3, 4, 

5, and 7, which collectively show the outside, front, bottom, 

and rear of the shoe, provide a sufficient representation of 

the claimed design:

1 On February 11, 2021, we granted Mojave’s motion 

to substitute for U.S.A. Dawgs, Inc. (“Dawgs”). See Mojave 

Desert Holdings, LLC v. Crocs, Inc., No. 2020-1167, 2021 

WL 499576 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 11, 2021). 

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MOJAVE DESERT HOLDINGS, LLC v. CROCS, INC. 3

’789 patent, Figure 3 (left side view).

’789 patent, Figure 4 (front view).

’789 patent, Figure 5 (rear view). 

Case: 20-1167 Document: 66 Page: 3 Filed: 02/18/2021
4 MOJAVE DESERT HOLDINGS, LLC v. CROCS, INC.

’789 patent, Figure 7 (bottom view). 

B. 

On August 24, 2012, Dawgs filed a request for inter 

partes reexamination of the ’789 patent, which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ordered on November 19, 2012. 

Although Dawgs proposed rejections, the examiner did not 

adopt them. Instead, the examiner issued a final rejection 

on August 9, 2017, finding that the design claimed in the 

’789 patent was anticipated by “the shoe shown in the Examiner’s Citation U,” which the examiner included in the 

examiner’s appendix, UX. J.A. 1745. 

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MOJAVE DESERT HOLDINGS, LLC v. CROCS, INC. 5

The examiner’s appendix contains a collection of web 

pages acquired by the examiner using the Wayback Machine.2 The examiner compiled the key images as Figure 11:

2 The Wayback Machine is an online digital archive 

of web pages. It is run by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit 

library in San Francisco, California. 

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6 MOJAVE DESERT HOLDINGS, LLC v. CROCS, INC.

J.A. 2132 (Figure 11).

Crocs appealed the examiner’s final rejection to the 

Board. On September 10, 2019, following an oral hearing,

the Board issued a Final Written Decision reversing the 

examiner’s anticipation finding. 

Dawgs timely appealed, and we have allowed Mojave 

to substitute. We have jurisdiction to hear appeals of final 

written decisions from the Board under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1295(a)(4)(A).

II.

We review the Board’s legal conclusions de novo and its 

factual findings for substantial evidence. See In re Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2000). “A finding is 

supported by substantial evidence if a reasonable mind 

might accept the evidence to support the finding.” Q.I. 

Press Controls, B.V. v. Lee, 752 F.3d 1371, 1378–79 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014). Anticipation is a question of fact that we review 

for substantial evidence. HTC Corp. v. Cellular Commc’ns 

Equip., LLC, 877 F.3d 1361, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2017). 

Having reviewed the Board’s decision and the record, 

we discern no reversible error. We therefore affirm.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs. 

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