On December 31, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision that a STAR Envirotech patent relating to its evaporative emission testing tools is valid and not obvious.

STAR designs and develops tools for testing vehicle evaporative emission control systems. STAR’s tools are mandated for use by many leading automobile manufacturers, including GM, Ford and Chrysler. Based on an initial IPR petition by competitor Redline Detection, the Board initially determined that Redline had demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of proving that at least one of STAR’s patent claims was unpatentable. However, as a result of STAR’s persuasive evidence and arguments submitted during the 18-month-long IPR proceeding, Knobbe Martens was able to successfully defend STAR’s patent.  In an exceptional result (based on current statistics), the Board upheld the patentability of the challenged claims, resulting in a complete victory for STAR and the Knobbe Martens legal team.  Now, in a precedential 33-page opinion, the Federal Circuit has affirmed the Board’s opinion.

Knobbe Martens Partner and STAR’s lead appellate counsel Brenton Babcock stated: “We are pleased that both the PTAB and the Federal Circuit have agreed with our assessment, finding Star Envirotech's technology to be patentable.”  STAR was also represented on the appeal by Knobbe Martens Partners Ed Schlatter and Jared Bunker.

Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) are proceedings recently created by Congress as part of the America Invents Act (AIA).  Current statistics indicate that a substantial majority of patents challenged in IPR proceedings have at least some, if not most, claims cancelled and/or amended. There have been only a small percentage of patents that have survived an IPR with all claims intact.