Posts Tagged: "Intel"

Partial Win for VLSI Against Intel as CAFC Reverses PTAB on One Claim of Integrated Circuit Patent

In a precedential opinion issued yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled partially in favor of VLSI Technology, Inc. in its case with Intel, reversing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) holding that one claim of U.S. Patent No. 7,247,552 was unpatentable. The court upheld the PTAB’s unpatentability findings on the three other challenged claims. Intel filed three separate inter partes review (IPR) petitions against VLSI challenging the validity of claims 1, 2, 11, and 20 of the ‘552 patent, which is directed to “’[a] technique for alleviating the problems of defects caused by stress applied to bond pads’ of an integrated circuit.”

Vidal’s Solution to OpenSky Abuse Encourages PTAB Extortion

There is a reason many stakeholders believe the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has been weaponized against patent owners. From the very outset, the first Chief Judge of the PTAB famously, or infamously, stated that if the tribunal was not doing some “death squadding” they were not doing their jobs; a rebuke to then Federal Circuit Chief Judge Randall Rader’s observation that the PTAB was nothing more than a death squad for patents. But from those early days where patent owners were not even allowed to submit evidence to rebut a petition at the institution stage, to the unbelievable lapse in ethical judgment of one former PTAB judge, there have been numerous reasons to question the tribunal.

Vidal Bans OpenSky from Active Role in VLSI IPR in Precedential Director Review Decision

In a much-anticipated decision, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal today issued a precedential Director review ruling holding that inter partes review (IPR) petitioner OpenSky Industries, LLC abused the IPR process in its conduct with patent owner, Technology LLC, and sanctioning OpenSky by excluding it from the IPR proceedings and “temporarily elevating Intel to the lead petitioner.” Vidal’s 52-page decision further remands the case to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to decide whether it merits institution “based only on the record before the Board prior to institution.” The decision explains that “OpenSky, through its counsel, abused the IPR process by filing this IPR in an attempt to extract payment from VLSI and joined Petitioner Intel, and expressed a willingness to abuse the process in order to extract the payment.”

OpenSky/VLSI Parties Battle it Out in Briefs to Vidal

Late last week, the parties to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Review of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) institution decisions in OpenSky Industries, LLC v. VLSI Technology LLC, IPR2021-01064 and Patent Quality Assurance, LLC v. VLSI Technology LLC, IPR2021-01229, filed their opening briefs. While OpenSky vehemently denied any abuse of the PTAB system, VLSI said the cases force the USPTO to answer the question “whether the Office should allow itself to be used to facilitate extortion.”

PTAB Denies OpenSky’s Request for Rehearing But VLSI Cases Highlight Broader PTAB Problems

On March 28, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) denied petitioner OpenSky Industries’ request for rehearing of an earlier decision denying institution of inter partes review (IPR) of one of two VLSI patents supporting a massive $2.2 billion infringement damages verdict in U.S. district court. The ruling is the latest chapter in a series of challenges to VLSI’s patent claims, which has forced VLSI to run a gauntlet arguably demonstrating that the PTAB fails to function as the alternative forum for speedy validity resolutions originally envisioned by Congress when it passed the America Invents Act (AIA) into law back in 2011.