Heather Repicky

Late last week, the Federal Circuit issued Power Integrations, Inc. v. Semiconductor Components Indus., LLC and Regents of the Univ. of Minnesota v. LSI Corp. These two precedential decisions bring further clarity to who is subject to the time bar for filing petitions for inter partes review (IPR) and whether sovereign immunity protects patents from being subject to IPR challenges. The key takeaways are: (1) Consider the impact of mergers and acquisitions on IPR petitions, including those that have already been filed; and (2) Patents owned by states (including, state universities and research institutions) can be challenged in an IPR.

On June 1, 2018, the new patent local rules went into effect in the District of Massachusetts following a substantial overhaul that began over one year ago.  In January 2017, the judges in D. Mass. formed a committee which included ten local patent litigators to advise the court on revising its practices specific to patent litigation in the district.  The final draft of the proposed rules was released for public comment from December 2017 through February 2018, giving other patent litigators in the district and interested parties a first glimpse of the new rules and the ability to weigh in on their implications.  This week the court announced its final version of the rules, which will apply to all cases for which a scheduling order as yet to issue.