Patent Filings Roundup: Quiet Week for the Courts, Qualcomm Takes Semiconductor Suits to the PTAB

District court patent filings dropped to 38 new complaints this week, with 28 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions – one post grant review (PGR) and 27 inter partes reviews (IPRs) – filed. It was a subdued week for WSOU and the usual big filers, with the IPRs propped up by a big funded semiconductor fight with an International Trade Commission (ITC) component.  Dominion Harbor’s Vista Peak Ventures filed against a number of overseas companies, and frequent filer Blue Spike came back with a vengeance, but on the whole, a quieter post-election week all around.

The PTAB’s Semiconductor Kinda Life: In response to the November ITC and district court suits against Qualcomm last year on semiconductor technology and the subsequent suits against Nanya Technology Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Qualcomm and Nanya have punched back at the PTAB just under the wire, finishing out their filings with another five IPRs. See IPR2021-00167 (U.S. Patent 6,651,134), IPR2021-00172 (U.S. Patent 6,902,993), IPR2021-00171 (U.S. Patent 6,680,516), IPR2021-00130 (U.S. Patent 6,459,625), IPR2021-00170 (U.S. Patent 7,158,429). In addition to the three IPRs Qualcomm filed earlier, which we previously discussed, that brings us to at least eight total, all filed near the end of the one-year bar. The case was filed in Delaware before Judge Colm Connoly. AMD has reexamined and IPRed some of the portfolio as well. Per recent

Rights acquired by AdobeStock