In a decision denying summary judgment, the District of Massachusetts weighed in on an unsettled issue: whether after receiving a final written decision in an inter partes review, a patent challenger is permitted to raise...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) granted Petitioner’s motions to sanction Patent Owner for failure to meet its duty of candor and fair dealing in five related inter partes review proceedings. The PTAB found that...more
In an appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, the Federal Circuit confirmed that on the issue of inter partes review (IPR) estoppel, the burden of proof rests on the patentee to...more
In a sua sponte review, USPTO Director Kathy Vidal continued her refinement of the PTAB’s “discretionary denial” practice. Specifically, the Director vacated the Board’s decision to deny institution in Volvo Penta of the...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently instituted an inter partes review where the patent owner argued that the petitioner failed to establish its expert as a person of skill in the art, which would have rendered the...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently rejected an inter partes review petition that relied on a conclusory and unsupported expert declaration. The expert’s written testimony, which repeated portions of the petition...more
In the wake of her October 4, 2022 Precedential OpenSky decision, the United States Patent and Trademark Office Director Katherine Vidal issued another precedential decision further clarifying the actions that should be...more
The USPTO Director recently conducted sua sponte review of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision granting adverse judgment in four IPR proceedings where a panel found that the patent owner had abandoned the contests. In a...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a request for rehearing of a final written decision in which it had originally determined that the challenged were not unpatentable. On rehearing, the board found that petitioner’s...more
In a precedential 52-page sua sponte decision, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Katherine Vidal addressed several issues of first impression relating to sanctionable misconduct in inter partes...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied a petition to institute inter partes review, finding there was no reasonable likelihood that petitioners would prevail on their obviousness challenges. In rendering its decision, the...more
In an IPR institution decision issued shortly after the USPTO issued interim guidance on discretionary denials, the PTAB held that the petition presented “compelling evidence of unpatentability,” foreclosing a Fintiv...more
A recent board decision denying inter partes review serves as a reminder that an expert opining on obviousness must at least meet the definition of an ordinarily skilled artisan. The patent at issue related to a...more
Petitioners moved for an order requiring Patent Owner to produce discovery comprising Final Infringement Contentions from related district court litigations between the parties. Petitioners set forth two independent bases...more
A judge in the District of Delaware has ruled that an estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) does not apply to prior-art products, even if those products are “cumulative” of prior-art patents or printed publications that were...more
The USPTO recently issued new guidance on how the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) will apply Apple Inc. v. Fintiv Inc., a 2020 precedential decision which laid out considerations for denying institution of a post-grant...more
Key Points -
On June 21, 2022, USPTO Director Katherine K. Vidal issued a memorandum titled “Interim Procedure for Discretionary Denials in AIA Post-Grant Proceedings With Parallel District Court Litigation.”
Under...more
In a recent order, the Eastern District of Texas declined to preclude a defendant from raising prior art system references despite patentee’s argument that similar printed publications could have been raised in earlier inter...more
A district court recently denied a motion for attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285 where the defendant successfully invalidated each claim of the patent at issue during an inter partes review proceeding. The district court...more
In a recent inter partes review proceeding, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board relied on compelling evidence of secondary considerations to hold all challenged claims not unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Specifically, the...more
In an inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board applied guidance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and declined to consider an obviousness ground that was based on admissions about prior art in the...more
In two related inter partes review proceedings, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a petitioner’s motion to exclude the declaration of an inventor because the patent owner failed to make him available for...more
A judge in the Eastern District of Virginia recently held that cancellation of independent claims in an inter partes review (IPR) did not preclude the plaintiff from asserting infringement based on the doctrine of equivalents...more
More than a year after its last precedential designation, the Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has held that Fedwire confirmation of payment constitutes sufficient evidence that the...more
A panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board instituted inter partes review of a patent, rejecting the patent owner’s assertion that the petitioner’s obviousness arguments were collaterally estopped by a district court’s...more