Posts Tagged: "APJs"

MSPB Grants ‘Corrective Action’ to APJ for USPTO Retaliation Following Whistleblower Activity

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) issued a decision on May 5 granting Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Administrative Patent Judge (APJ) Michael Fitzpatrick’s request for corrective action with respect to alleged retaliatory personnel actions against him by senior management officials at the Department of Commerce and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The 131-page decision said that Fitzpatrick filed the appeal to the MSPB in 2021, following punishment for “protected whistleblowing activity.

Centripetal Files Mandamus Petition Following PTAB’s Retaliatory Sanctions for Questioning APJ Financial Interests

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.”

PTAB Finds Centripetal’s Recusal Arguments ‘Frivolous’ and ‘Baseless,’ Warns About Sanctions for Future Attacks

Late last week, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued an order denying a motion for recusal and vacatur filed by patent owner Centripetal Networks, which had previously alleged that an administrative patent judge (APJ) on the PTAB panel had an improper financial interest in Cisco. Centripetal had previously obtained a $1.9 billion damages verdict ($2.7 billion including the royalty award) in U.S. district court against Cisco for infringement of the patent at issue in the PTAB action. The strongly worded order, which also denied in part Centripetal’s motions for rehearing, found that the APJ’s financial interests did not violate the executive branch employee ethics rules to which APJs are subject during PTAB proceedings.

House IP Subcommittee Drills Down on GAO’s Preliminary Findings that PTAB Judges are Being Influenced by USPTO Leadership

The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet today held Part II in a series of hearings to consider reforms to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) 10 years after it was created by the America Invents Act (AIA). The hearing, titled “The Patent Trial and Appeal Board After 10 Years, Part II: Implications of Adjudicating in an Agency Setting,” coincided with the release of a preliminary report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that was commissioned in June of last year by IP Subcommittee Chair Hank Johnson (D-GA) and Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) to investigate PTAB decision-making practices. The GAO’s preliminary findings revealed that “the majority of [administrative patent] judges (75 percent) surveyed by GAO responded that the oversight practiced by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) directors and PTAB management has affected their independence, with nearly a quarter citing a large effect on independence.”

B.E. Technology Dubs IPR Process a ‘Kafkaesque Nightmare’ in Mandamus Petition to CAFC

B.E. Technology, a company owned by Martin David Hoyle, developer of internet advertising technology who has been embroiled in litigation with big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google for close to a decade now, today filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). The petition asks the court to intervene to “prevent an unconstitutional deprivation of B.E.’s property rights in the onslaught of IPR proceedings that have been brought to challenge the validity of its most critical patents.” B.E. specifically asks the CAFC to direct the Patent Trial and Appeal Board  (PTAB) to vacate its decisions to grant institution in four separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings: Twitter, Inc. and Google LLC v. B.E. Technology, L.L.C., Nos. IPR2021-00482, IPR2021-00483, IPR2021-00484, and IPR2021-00485. The question presented is: “Whether a writ of mandamus should issue to prevent an unconstitutional deprivation of the Petitioner patent owner’s property rights without due process of law?”