Posts Tagged: "Finjan"

Just over 18 months ago, Andrei Iancu assumed control of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As the Director of the USPTO, Iancu has changed the tone of the conversation over patents in America. During President Obama’s second term the USPTO became aggressively anti-patent and anti-innovator. The speeches, policies and inaction of Director Michelle Lee led innovators and observers to correctly claim that the Obama Administration had come to champion the viewpoints of infringers, not the technology innovators. Director Iancu changed that almost overnight. Where Director Iancu has failed, however, is with respect to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). With great fanfare, Director Iancu created a Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) that we were told would result in more decisions of the PTAB being declared precedential on the entire PTAB. There was hope that the POP would address the most important issues, such as serial challenges to the same patent over and over again, the use of the same prior art over and over again, and once and for all require the PTAB to apply the Federal Circuit view of what it means to be a real party and interest. Unfortunately, real reform of the PTAB has not happened despite tinkering with the Trial Guide. In important ways the PTAB is worse, and the efforts that have been undertaken incorrectly form the appearance of reform.

After dissenting APJ James Arpin was mysteriously and without explanation removed from the case, replaced by APJ Thomas Giannetti. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation for what happened here, but in the secretive, backroom world of the PTAB innocent explanations are becoming harder and harder to envision. And, frankly, given how the PTAB has run amok for so long the tribunal has lost any legitimate claim to the benefit of doubt. If there is nothing nefarious going on, then why is it that the patent owner always seems to be on the wrong end of these procedural irregularities? Why is it that the invisible hand of the PTAB always winds up on the side of the scale that takes patent rights away?

According to the Federal Circuit, The claims simply do not simply recite an abstract result. Because the claims recite specific steps that accomplish a desired result, the the claims were found to be directed to a non-abstract improvement in computer functionality, not an abstract concept of computer security. Nevertheless, the Federal Circuit said the jury verdict of infringement relative to the ’968 patent should be set aside because there is no evidence that the accused product includes a feature claimed in the patent. Several errors were identified with respect to the royalty calculation of the ‘844 patent, which the Federal Circuit remanded to the trial court for further consideration. For the ’731 and ’633 patents, Finjan’s expert did apportion the revenues comprising the royalty base between infringing and non-infringing functionality of Proxy SG. The jury’s damages awards for infringement of these two patents were affirmed.

In Finjan, Inc. v. Blue Coat Systems, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, and remanded the case to the district court. Notably, however, the Federal Circuit found no error in the district court’s subject matter eligibility determination, meaning the claims of Finjan’s ‘844 patent were patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. Perhaps more remarkable, the claims of the ‘844 patent relate to virus-screening and were determined to be not abstract. Still more remarkable, the author of this Federal Circuit decision was Judge Dyk, who is not know as a zealous advocate for software patent eligibility.

The Federal Circuit decided that Finjan had not presented substantial evidence that Blue Coat infringed the ‘968 patent. The court also agreed with Blue Coat that Finjan failed to apportion damages awarded for the ‘844 patent to the infringing functionality… This finding by the Federal Circuit reverses $7.8 million in damages related to infringement of the ‘968 patent awarded in district court. The Federal Circuit ruling on apportionment of damages awarded for the ‘844 patent will also cut into the largest portion of Finjan’s damages award.

East Palo Alto, CA-based web security firm Finjan Holdings recently filed a Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which disclosed a patent assignment agreement made with Armonk, NY-based information technology giant IBM (NYSE:IBM). Under the terms of the agreement, Finjan Blue, a newly formed subsidiary of Finjan, will acquire a series of IBM security-related patents with potential pathways for the IBM and Finjan to work collaboratively on development of those patented technologies.

Finjan asserts four patents in the case and alleges that Bitdefender’s marketing of antivirus, cloud and sandboxing technologies infringes upon the patents-in-suit. The case has been filed in the Northern District of California… Finjan’s suit against Bitdefender alleges that Bitdefender was presented with written notice of the alleged infringement of Finjan’s patents as early as February 2015. In October 2015, Finjan alleged that it discussed the ‘844, ‘154 and ‘494 patents with Bitdefender and how those patents read on technology practiced by Bitdefender. Despite numerous in-person and telephone meetings, Finjan alleges that that Bitdefender has continued to engage in willful and deliberate infringement of Finjan’s IP.

Finjan will issue 153,000 shares of Series A-1 Preferred Stock at a price of $100 per share to Soryn HLDR. In connection with this transaction, the company will also issue to Soryn HLDR warrants to purchase two million shares of common stock at an exercise price of $3.18 per common share. 

Recently the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied institution in two separate inter partes review (IPR) challenges. Both IPR petitions were filed by Blue Coat Systems, LLC, against Finjan, Inc. In both instances the Board found that the Blue Coat IPR petitions were harassing and denied institution… These two decisions could mark a turning point in the maturation of the Board. At least several patent owners, including Finjan, are routinely subject to serial, harassing IPR challenges. The Patent Office doing something about harassing IPR challenges is long overdue.