Posts Tagged: "post grant procedures"

It was a rather light district court week for patent filings, with just 24 new cases filed last week—we are starting to see the effects of a depressed rate of filing from IP Edge in the overall numbers (link behind paywall). The week also saw an average number of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings, all inter partes reviews (IPRs). A number of IP Edge pending disputes settled last week; it looks like the Bell Semiconductor/Hilco Capital suit against seemingly the entire semiconductor industry has started to settle out, with some big names dismissing cases pursuant to settlement, including Kioxia, Nvidia, Micron, and many others—whether pursuant to a bulk license through RPX or some other mechanism is unknown, but it’s likely to be some group deal for so many parties to settle at the same general time in such a far-ranging dispute.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has a well-earned and perfectly appropriate problem with perception, and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal seems to be doing her level best to make that problem of perception even worse. It isn’t bad enough that petitioners do not owe the PTAB or the Office itself a duty of candor, but now they can stay in a case as a petitioner even if they are found to have engaged in extortion. There has long been a systemic bias against patent owners, who have for many years suffered through lengthy examinations of their innovations. But ever since former PTAB Chief Judge James Smith embraced the moniker of “patent death squad” as a badge of honor, the PTAB has suffered from a perception problem, and really now lacks all credibility.

During the PTAB Masters 2023 program, which was held this week on Tuesday and Wednesday at IPWatchdog’s headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia, former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director David Kappos explained on a panel about potential reform of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that the PTAB was meant to be an alternative to district court, but “that hasn’t worked out.” Kappos was Director during the enactment and implementation of the America Invents Act (AIA), which established the PTAB.

Following United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal’s December 2022 precedential decision that Patent Quality Assurance (PQA) abused the inter partes review (IPR) process in its case against VLSI Technology, PQA has filed a petition seeking mandamus relief in the matter with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). Vidal ruled in December that PQA abused the IPR process by filing an IPR and threatening to join a separate IPR against VLSI in order to receive a payout from the technology firm. Vidal also found that PQA misrepresented an “exclusive engagement” with a witness, Dr. Adit Singh, who was involved in another IPR petition against VLSI from OpenSky. She wrote in the decision dismissing PQA from the IPR that, “though the behavior here may not be as egregious as that of OpenSky… I find that PQA’s behavior, nonetheless, amounts to an abuse of process.”

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday invited the U.S. Solicitor General to provide its views on Apple’s petition asking the High Court to clarify the proper application of estoppel in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. The case stems from a February, 2022, decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in which the court issued a mixed precedential decision that affirmed, vacated, and remanded in part a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. That ruling related to a patent infringement suit filed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) against Broadcom Limited, Broadcom Corporation, and Avago Technologies (collectively “Broadcom) and Apple Inc.

The issue of who is the real party in interest in an inter partes review (IPR) filed at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is a particularly thorny matter. When IPRs were introduced, patent owners were assured that there would be a meaningful estoppel provision, which would prevent those who lost IPRs from challenging the same patents in later proceedings. There was also a statute of limitations, another thorny matter, that would prevent challengers from filing an IPR more than one year after they were sued. The long and short of it is this—real party in interest law and statute of limitations law, which apply in every other legal setting, are interpreted vastly differently at the PTAB. For example, with the statute of limitations, if you are barred from bringing a challenge and someone else brings a challenge, then suddenly you are able to join the challenge, despite being barred. But wait—there is more. If that first party that was not barred settles and leaves the case and the barred party is the only challenger remaining, well the case must go on. A legal absurdity.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) stayed active over the holiday period with several big announcements, and today Director Kathi Vidal continued that trend by designating as precedential the December 21 decision in Apple v. Zipit Wireless. Also in December, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its full report on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), recommending, among other suggestions, that the Office make public any policies and directives to judges that could impact substantive decision-making.

During an IPWatchdog-hosted webinar held today, panelists reflected on the impact that U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Kathi Vidal has had on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) so far and called her handling of the VLSI v. OpenSky case a “giant missed opportunity” to create a roadmap for how the Office will handle bad faith behavior.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) last week denied a petition requesting mandamus relief to vacate the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) grant of a request for ex parte reexamination of Sound View Innovations’ U.S. Patent No. 6,708,213 by DISH Network LLC. The ‘213 patent covers a “Method for Streaming Multimedia Information Over Public Networks.” DISH originally petitioned the USPTO for inter partes review (IPR) of claim 16 of the ‘213 patent on the ground that it was anticipated and/or obvious based on two prior art references called Sen and Geagen.

It was a light week for patent filings, with 18 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and 38 district court complaints; last week saw the first Fintiv denials in months in a tranche of cases very close to trial; this week there were five more discretionary denials under Section 325(d), where the parties failed to point out any material error in earlier proceedings analyzing similar art under Advanced Bionics. And obviously, the third Fortress/VLSi trial resulting in another near-billion-dollar award splashed the headlines. The District of Delaware was busy uncovering the story behind IP Edge/Mavexar LLC and how they run and control their subsidiaries, and it’s even more interesting than I thought it was; though of course, it hasn’t stopped entities like those run by Jeffrey Gross from continuing to roll out filings. More below.

Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in CUPP Computing AS v. Trend Micro Inc. affirming final written decisions from a trio of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings invalidating CUPP Computing’s patent claims covering methods for performing security operations on a mobile device. The CAFC’s decision makes clear to patent owners defending their rights at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that the Board is not required to consider a disclaimer entered during IPR as binding on the proceedings before it.

It was a return to form this week in the district courts, with 115 new patent filings (led by more than 40 new IP Edge complaints) to just 23 new Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings—the latter number being bolstered by a number of challenges to patents held by Raymond Anthony Joao subsidiary Beteiro, LLC by a conglomerate of gambling companies, including PointsBet USA, DraftKings, Inc., BetMGM, LLC, Hillside New Jersey LLC, and Entain Corporate Services Ltd. Micron filed another set of challenges against Katana Silicon Technologies patents, Ecobee challenged another Magnetar entity, Ollnova, which has brought suit on Internet of Things (IoT) related devices; and it was another week without any discretionary denials.

Three amici filed briefs last week in Jump Rope System’s petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision upholding a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding of unpatentability. Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund and the Fair Inventing Fund filed briefs in support of the jump rope company while DivX filed in support of neither party .

Jump Rope Systems, the inventor of a novel jump rope system, is petitioning the Supreme Court to clarify “whether, as a matter of federal patent law, a determination of unpatentability by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review proceeding, affirmed by the Federal Circuit, has a collateral estoppel effect on patent validity in a patent infringement lawsuit in federal district court.”

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has the discretion to deny institution of an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d) if “the same or substantially the same prior art or arguments previously were presented to the Office.” In Advanced Bionics, LLC v. Med-El Elektromedizinische Geräte GmbH (“Advanced Bionics”), the PTAB established a two-part framework for determining whether a PTAB panel should exercise discretion under Section 325(d). This article surveys recent PTAB decisions having the common fact that the IPR challenges rely upon prior art that is the same or substantially the same as prior art submitted in an IDS during prosecution to glean insights as to how parties and the Board are addressing Advanced Bionics in this scenario.

It was another surprisingly light week in patent filings, compared at least with recent memory—just 29 new suits and 17 new filings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), all inter partes reviews (IPRs). The filings include a few challenges against patents asserted by the Fortress-funded Neo Wireless and Netlist, as well as a slew of filings by Apple against Mullin Industries, LLC. After a week’s respite there were five new IP Edge suits—not as many as usual, but still enough to represent almost a fifth of all suits filed this week.