Posts Tagged: "inter partes review"

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal said in an Order filed yesterday in IPR2021-01229 between Patent Quality Assurance (PQA)/Intel and VLSI Technology that VLSI’s reference in its Rehearing Request to an “unsolicited, anonymous, and improper ex parte communication” about the relationship between PQA and Intel that Vidal had put under seal has put VLSI on thin ice and in danger of being sanctioned.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today affirmed in a precedential decision the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) finding that Moderna Therapeutics proved certain claims of Arbutus Biopharma Corporation’s mRNA delivery patent invalid as anticipated. U.S. Patent No. 9,404,127 is titled “Non-liposomal Systems for Nucleic Acid Delivery” and is directed to “an invention that provides stable nucleic acid-lipid particles (‘SNALP’) that have a non-lamellar structure and ‘comprise a nucleic acid . . . methods of making the SNALP, and methods of delivering and/or administering the SNALP.’” SNALP has a three-dimensional structure that is either a lamellar morphology or non-lamellar (pictured).

On April 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a trio of Rule 36 judgments that summarily affirmed a series of final written decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Rule 36 summary affirmances at the Federal Circuit have been a growing problem in the realm of U.S. patent law over the better part of the last decade. Without the benefit of an appellate court’s reasoned analysis of arguments raised on appeal, IP attorneys and professionals are left grasping for answers from PTAB rulings without knowing for certain whether the PTAB’s construction of obviousness doctrine is proper.

On Wednesday, April 4, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) denied VLSI’s motion to terminate Intel’s involvement in an inter partes review (IPR) of VLSI’s U.S. Patent No. 7,725,759. In addition to Intel, OpenSky is also a petitioner in the IPR, which pertains to claims 1, 14, 17, 18, 21, 22, and 24 of the ‘759 patent. VLSI argued that a previous March 2021 district court ruling that found Intel had not proven invalidity of claims 14, 17, 18, and 24 of the patent precluded the tech firm from continuing to pursue this IPR. However, Intel successfully made the case that claim preclusion does not apply thanks to the America Invents Act (AIA). Additionally, it argued that the IPR and district court proceedings do not involve the same accused product and have different standards of proof.

On March 30, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal issued a decision on sua sponte Director review that vacated a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which had previously denied institution of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings brought by semiconductor company Wolfspeed. In her latest in a series of sua sponte decisions, Director Vidal ruled that the PTAB erred in determining that prior art asserted by Wolfspeed was essentially the same as other prior art asserted against the same Purdue University patent claims in previous IPR proceedings that were also denied institution by the PTAB.

Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed in part a district court ruling that found video game company Valve willfully infringed Ironburg’s U.S. Patent No. 8,641,525. However, the CAFC judges ruled that the district court erred when it estopped Valve from raising several grounds that were not the subject of its partially-instituted inter partes review (IPR) petition against Ironburg. Judge Clevenger dissented. A jury levied Valve with $4 million in damages, a sum that Ironburg argued should be enhanced. The district court did not grant enhanced damages, found that the two challenged claim terms were not indefinite, said the claims were willfully infringed, held that Valve was estopped from litigating the prior art grounds on which IPR was requested but not instituted, and also held that Valve was estopped from litigating later-discovered invalidity grounds. The CAFC affirmed all but the latter holding, explaining that the later-discovered prior art that was not part of the IPR petition must be held to a “skilled searcher” standard that it is the burden of the patent holder to prove is subject to IPR estoppel.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday issued a precedential decision holding that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) correctly found Roku, Inc. had failed to prove the challenged claims of Universal Electronics, Inc.’s patent obvious. Judge Stoll authored the majority opinion and Judge Newman dissented, citing both procedural and substantive problems with the majority’s analysis. The decision relates to Universal Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 9,716,853, which generally is directed to universal remote controls. Specifically, the patent describes “a universal control engine (UCE) that facilitates communication between a controlling device (i.e., a remote) and intended target appliances.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Thursday upheld two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions finding VirnetX’s patent claims unpatentable in inter partes review (IPR) challenges brought by Apple, Inc. and Mangrove Partners. The dispute relates to VirnetX’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,502,135 and 7,490,151, which are directed to a “secure mechanism for communicating over the internet.” Mangrove Partners challenged several claims of the ‘135 patent at the PTAB, alleging they were anticipated by a 1996 article authored by Kiuchi and Kaihara

Last week, cyber threat intelligence firm Centripetal Networks filed a petition  with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit seeking mandamus relief from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) “extraordinary departure from basic elements of due process” during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings challenging Centripetal’s patent claims. If left unremedied, Centripetal argues to the Federal Circuit that its own treatment at the hands of the PTAB “sen[ds] a message to the entire patent bar: Any attempt to hold APJs to standards comparable to those of Article III judges [will] be met with sanctions.”

On March 9, e-commerce company Ingenio Inc. filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to take up an appeal of a decision last August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in favor of patent owner Click-to-Call Technologies. Ingenio’s petition asks the Supreme Court to overturn the Federal Circuit’s ruling that Ingenio was estopped from challenging the validity of patent claims that were denied institution during inter partes review (IPR) validity proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

On March 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Intel Corp. v. PACT XPP Schweiz AG reversing a final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that found Intel had failed to show that PACT’s patent claims were invalid for obviousness. In reversing, the Federal Circuit ruled that the PTAB improperly rejected Intel’s “known technique” rationale supporting a motivation to combine prior art references under the flexible analysis set out by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 obviousness ruling in KSR v. Teleflex.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday said that Apple has standing to pursue its claim that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director’s instructions to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) regarding discretionary denial practice under Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc. were made without proper notice-and-comment rulemaking. The CAFC affirmed the district court’s ruling on two other challenges brought by Apple, Cisco, Intel and Edwards Lifesciences, but said that at least Apple had standing to present the challenge that the discretionary denial instructions were improperly issued and reversed on that ground. The appeal relates to Apple’s and the other companies’ challenge of the Fintiv instructions governing the PTAB’s discretion to deny institution of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings based on their contention that they will result in too many denials.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal has been on a tear recently, reviewing sua sponte a number of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions and designating others precedential. Many of those decisions have helped to make America Invents Act (AIA) proceedings more rigorous and fair, such as the Director’s decisions correcting the PTAB for relying on conclusory expert statements and putting at least some teeth in the real parties in interest requirement. Her most recent interventions in Commscope Technologies v. Dali Wireless IPR2022-01242 and AviaGames, Inc. v. Skillz Platform, Inc., IPR2022-00530 however, add more confusion than clarity to the Fintiv analysis, and more work for parties and the Board, without improving fairness or efficiency.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday granted Patent Quality Assurance’s (PQA’s) motion to dismiss its January 24 petition for a writ of mandamus asking the CAFC to restore it as a party to its high-profile inter partes review (IPR) proceeding against VLSI Technology. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal in December 2022 ruled that PQA abused the IPR process by filing an IPR and threatening to join a separate IPR against VLSI in order to receive a payout from the technology firm. She also found that PQA misrepresented an “exclusive engagement” with a witness, Dr. Adit Singh, who was involved in another IPR petition against VLSI brought by OpenSky. She sanctioned PQA by dismissing it from the proceeding and said that, “though the behavior here may not be as egregious as that of OpenSky… I find that PQA’s behavior, nonetheless, amounts to an abuse of process.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled on March 1 that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred in its analysis of an inter partes review (IPR) filed by streaming giants Netflix and Hulu. The CAFC vacated and remanded the case, ordering the PTAB to once again review the patent dispute filed against DivX. “Because the Board legally erred in its obviousness analysis, and the error cannot be regarded as harmless, we vacate and remand,” wrote the CAFC judges in their ruling. Netflix and Hulu petitioned the PTAB to carry out an IPR in February 2020 of DivX’s U.S. Patent No. 10,225,588. The petition claimed the ‘588 patent was unpatentable due to obviousness.