Posts Tagged: "Thryv v. Click-to-Call"

On May 13, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed Bennett Regulator Guards, Inc.’s (Bennett) challenge of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision to vacate the institution of an inter partes review (IPR), citing a lack of jurisdiction, since the PTAB’s decision was based in part on its reconsideration of whether the petitioner was time barred from petitioning for IPR under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b). Judge Pauline Newman dissented.

In the late 1990s, prolific inventor David Petite invented a foundational technology for the Internet of Things. His invention drove proliferation of wirelessly networked machines and met with huge commercial success. But last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the revocation of his patent through a byzantine and controversial administrative proceeding. This patent was subjected to a Covered Business Method Review (CBM) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The PTAB is a division of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) created by the 2011 America Invents Act that has invalided a whopping 84% of the 3,000 patents they have reviewed. Coming too late to save Petite’s patent, the “transitional” CBM program expired September 16 of this year (two other types of PTAB proceedings remain in effect). CBM was not used nearly as much as the other PTAB proceedings, which have no restrictions on subject matter. Yet, corporate interests are still trying to revive CBM, and there’s buzz that attempts are being made to reinstate the program via the fiscal 2021 spending bill this week. There’s no logical basis to do so.

On November 17, 2020, in SIPCO LLP v. Emerson Electric Co., No. 2018-1635, slip op. (Fed. Cir. Nov. 17, 2020), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit extended the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP, 140 S. Ct. 1367 (2020) barring appeal of decisions to institute inter partes review (IPR) under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d), and held that decisions made by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to institute proceedings for covered business methods (CBMs) are not subject to appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 324(e). While the CBM transitional program of the America Invents Act (AIA) expired on September 16, 2020, the statutes applied when instituting and conducting review under the program were those of post-grant review (PGR) (under § 18(a)(1) of the AIA), and so the effect of the Federal Circuit’s decision in SIPCO is likely to be much more far-reaching.

On November 17 the Federal Circuit affirmed a determination of the PTAB that claims were obvious in view of the prior art in an appeal that was returned to the CAFC on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court. In particular, the CAFC concluded that, according to the recent Supreme Court decision in Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP, “§ 324(e) prohibits judicial review of SIPCO’s challenge because it is nothing more than a contention that the agency should have refused to institute [covered business method] CBM review.”

On September 4, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) modified and reissued its March 18, 2020 opinion in Facebook v. Windy City Innovations, LLC, following Facebook’s combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc. In the March 18 opinion, the CAFC ruled that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred both in allowing Facebook to join itself to a proceeding in which it was already a party, and in allowing Facebook to add new claims to the inter partes reviews (IPRs) at issue through that joinder.

Last week, Facebook and the USPTO both filed briefs in response to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Order requesting that the parties and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) file supplemental briefs explaining their views regarding the effect of the Supreme Court’s April 20, 2020 decision in Thryv, Inc. v. Click-To-Call Techs, LP on the CAFC’s March 18, 2020 decision in Facebook v. Windy City Innovations.  In Facebook, the CAFC ruled that the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred both in allowing Facebook to join itself to a proceeding in which it was already a party, and in allowing Facebook to add new claims to the inter partes reviews (IPRs) at issue through that joinder.

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision on appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board  (PTAB) in ESIP Series 2, LLC, v. Puzhen Life USA, LLC. The CAFC found no error in the PTAB’s holding that the claims at issue were obvious and determined that the PTAB’s decision to institute inter partes review (IPR) despite ESIP’s contention that Puzhen failed to identify all real parties in interest was final and non-appealable.

In an energetic dissent in Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Tech., LP, 590 U.S. __ (Apr. 20, 2020), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch provides a compelling defense of patent rights, and he champions a patent owner’s ability to obtain judicial review of certain threshold administrative decisions from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). But while Justice Gorsuch’s insightful analysis is receiving accolades from many in the patent community, it failed to garner any support among his Supreme Court colleagues, save for one, Justice Sotomayor.

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), by and through his designees, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), has the unchallengeable authority to institute inter partes review (IPR) proceedings even when they are brought outside the statute of limitations. Thus, the PTAB is now the most important patent court in the United States. This begs an important question that Congress must soon wrestle with regarding access to the PTAB. We have been told over and over again just how essential the PTAB is to the patent system. How necessary the PTAB is with respect to rooting out bad patents that never should have issued. And, honestly, the PTAB has been very, very good at killing patent claims and patents. But there is a fundamental unfairness at the PTAB. If the PTAB is so important, why are the fees so high? If the PTAB plays such a vital role in correcting the egregious mistakes of patent examiners (of which there are apparently many given the number of valuable patents that die upon review), why should only those patents that are owned by independent inventors, universities, start-ups and research and development companies be the targets? What about the truly ridiculous, idiotic patents that are issued to large entities?

Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies was in some ways unsurprising, but has generated buzz among the patent community all the same. Many pointed to Justice Gorsuch’s dissent as being particularly poignant, and perhaps indicative of what issues will be front and center in other pending petitions at the Court, such as Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew. IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn said yesterday that, with the Thryv decision, “the Supreme Court sets hundreds of years of fundamental procedural law on its head…. No challenge is proper, and if the PTAB wants to institute outside the statutory time period there is nothing anyone can do.” Here is what some other members of the patent bar had to say.

In an opinion authored by Justice Ginsburg, the Supreme Court ruled today that Section 314 (d) of the U.S. Patent Act, which bars judicial review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions to institute inter partes review (IPR), should preclude appeals of PTAB institution decisions, even where the appeal is based on Section 315(b)’s one-year time-bar for institution. “Congress designed inter partes review to weed out bad patent claims efficiently,” wrote the Court in today’s decision. “Allowing §315(b) appeals, however, would unwind agency proceedings determining patentability and leave bad patents enforceable.” Despite Click-to-Call’s argument that the bar on appeals under Section 314(d) is limited to the agency’s threshold determination under §314(a) of the question whether the petitioner has a reasonable likelihood of prevailing, the Court explained that Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee “is fatal to that interpretation.”

On Monday, December 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Thryv, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP. The case, which has gone through multiple name changes since its original appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), will ask the nation’s highest court whether 35 U.S.C. § 314(d), which states that decisions to institute inter partes review (IPR) proceedings shall not be appealable, permits appeals of PTAB institution decisions based upon 35 U.S.C. § 315(b). Section 315(b) states that IPRs won’t be instituted if the patent owner served the petitioner with a complaint for patent infringement more than one year prior to the petition. To summarize the lower court proceedings in this case, the patent-at-issue was first asserted against Keen Inc. by Inforocket.com in 2001 in a case that was voluntarily dismissed. Click-to-Call acquired the patent and asserted it in 2012 against Ingenio, a company formed through a merger of Keen and Inforocket.com. Ingenio filed for an IPR petition and Click-to-Call challenged it based on the Section 315(b) time-bar and the former suit against Ingenio’s predecessor. The appeal reached the Supreme Court, where it was remanded in June 2016 in light of Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rendered a decision last August where all 12 Federal Circuit judges joined a footnote finding that the Section 315(b) time bar applies even when the earlier infringement action had been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.