Posts Tagged: "Alden v. Maine"

Amici Urge Supreme Court to Grant UMN Petition on Sovereign Immunity for IPRs

On October 15, 12 state universities and state university systems filed an amicus brief in support of the University of Minnesota in its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of the June 2019 Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruling in Regents of the University of Minnesota v. LSI Corporation. In that decision, the CAFC said that the University of Minnesota (UMN)—an arm of the state of Minnesota—is not protected by state sovereign immunity from a number of inter partes review (IPR) petitions filed against UMN patents by LSI Corporation (LSI). The court relied heavily on its 2018 decision in Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., 896 F.3d 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2018), which found that “tribal sovereign immunity cannot be asserted in IPRs.” Despite UMN’s arguments to the contrary, the Federal Circuit answered a question left open in its decision in Saint Regis Mohawk by concluding today that “the differences between tribal and state sovereign immunity do not warrant a departure from the reasoning in Saint Regis.”