A Likely Uphill Battle for Synopsys In Suit Against The Patent Office
| June 13, 2014
In a complaint recently filed in a Virginia federal court, Synopsys accused the Patent and Trademark Office (“the Patent Office”) of prescribing rules and regulations for inter partes review (77 Fed. Reg. 48727) that are procedurally defective and ultra vires. Synopsys took issue specifically with Patent Office’s Rules 42.108(a) and (b), which govern the institution of review and instruct that:
(a) When instituting inter partes review, the Board may authorize the review to proceed on all or some of the challenged claims and on all or some of the grounds of unpatentability asserted for each claim;
(b) At any time prior to institution of inter partes review, the Board may deny some or all grounds for unpatentability for some or all of the challenged claims. Denial of a ground is a Board decision not to institute inter partes review on that ground.
These rules, Synopsys argued, are inconsistent with Sections 314(a) and 318(a) of the America Invents Act (“AIA”). Section 314(a) sets the threshold for instituting inter partes review at “a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition.” Synopsys interpreted this statutory language to mean that where the threshold is met, the Patent Office must grant a petition for inter partes review in whole.
Read More/続きを読む
Scope of Live Testimony in Final IPR Hearings
| June 4, 2014
Last week we reported that in K-40 Electronics v. Escort (IPR2013-00203), the APJs had granted the Patent Owner’s request that its inventor be allowed to give live testimony on his invention’s conception date, presumably to remove the references as prior art. The APJs explained that live testimony was appropriate in view of the type of testimony to be presented. They set a procedure, however, in which the inventor first would be cross-examined by the Petitioner on his declaration, followed by re-direct examination by the Patent Owner.