Featured Posts
- Facebook Loses Reexaminations of Pragmatus’ Patents
- How is Reexamination Treating Round Rock Research?
- Reexamination has not Saved Apple against MobileMedia Patents, So Far
- What is an “Involved Application” in IPR Practice?
- Apple Victorious over Affinity Labs of Texas’ Portable Audio Player Patent
- Think IP Strategy Offers 2011 News Almanac
- An Update on Oracle’s Infringement Case against Google
- PTO Requests Public Comment on Proposed Rules for AIA Post-Issuance Proceedings
- Microsoft-i4i, Oracle-Google & VirnetX-Apple-Cisco Updates
- Oracle Patent to Emerge from Reexamination
- VirnetX again Sues for Infringement, and again Faces Reexaminations
- How Strong are Google’s Requests for Reexamination of the Lodsys Patents?
- PTO Board Sides with NVIDIA on Two Rambus “Barth I” Patents
- Oracle ‘520 Moves toward Confirmation in Reexamination
- Google Gets Mixed Result against Oracle’s Seventh Patent
- Did Google Request Reexamination of Lodsys Patents?
- Two Updates
- Oracle v. Google Android® Update
- Rambus Wins Limited Exclusion Order at ITC against NVIDIA, despite Pending Reexaminations
- 最初が肝心：不備のない再審査請求書を作成するために
- That’s My Patent You’re Reexamining…
- “Why Wait for Oppositions?” by Scott Daniels, 47 IDEA 343 (Law Review of Franklin Pierce Law School)
- The Basics
Noteworthy Links
- "The Interplay between Reexaminations, Preliminary Injunctions and Stays of Litigation" - by Dennis Crouch at PATENTLYO.COM
Favorite Patent Blogs
- All Things Pros
- CAFC Alert
- FDA Law Blog
- IPWatchdog
- Patent Docs
- Patently-O
- PLI Patent Law Practice Center
- Think IP Strategy
- US Patent Post-Grant Opposition
Recent Requests
PTO Statistics
Monsanto’s Attack on Two Pioneer Hi-Bred Patents among the Post-Grant Challenges Filed Week of October 15, 2012
| October 22, 2012
Monsanto has requested inter partes review of two Pioneer Hi-Bred International patents claiming a method for increasing corn seed quality (see inter partes review Request Nos. (3) & (4)). The companies are involved in an infringement action over these patents in Iowa.
At the end of August ViiV Healthcare Co. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. sued Mylan in Delaware for infringing an aspartyl protease inhibitor patent. Ranbaxy has now requested inter partes review of the patent (see inter partes review Request No. (5)).
The feud between Intellectual Ventures and Xilinx deepened Friday when the latter requested inter partes review of an IV video projection patent (see inter partes review Request No. (9)).
Apotex Challenge to Alcon Ophthalmic Treatment Patent Among the Post-Grant Filings Week of October 8, 2012
| October 16, 2012
Apotex requested inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 7,671,070, owned by Alcon Pharmaceuticals and claiming a composition for treating ophthalmic infections (see inter partes review No. (2)). The ‘070 patent has been the subject of infringement actions filed by Alcon against Apotex, Watson and Lupin.
Research in Motion filed a request against MobileMedia’s U.S. Patent No. 6,441,828 that claims an image display apparatus (see inter partes review No. (3)). The ‘828 patent was originally owned by Sony who assigned it to MobileMedia. MobileMedia has received quite a number of patents from Sony and Nokia, and then sought to enforce them.
Kyocera Attack on Two Scalable Display Patents, among the Post-Grant Requests Filed Week of October 1, 2012
| October 9, 2012
Last week Kyocera took advantage of the new post-grant provisions of the AIA by requesting inter partes review of two SoftView patents claiming systems for creating scalable displays of Internet content on mobile devices (see inter partes review Request Nos. (1) & (4). SoftView has sued Kyocera and Apple, among others, in Delaware for infringement of the patents. In May 2011, Apple initiated an inter partes reexamination of one of the two patents, U.S. Patent No. 7,831,926; though a non-final rejection is pending in that reexamination, the patentability of a majority of SoftView’s ‘926 claims has been confirmed. The PTO is likely to consider merging the new inter partes review with the earlier inter partes reexamination. An inter partes review request of a third SoftView patent in the litigation, U.S. Patent No. 7,028,257, might be in the offing.
Inter partes review was also requested by Micron of three semiconductor patents owned by the University of Illinois. The University and the company are involved in an infringement action in Illinois.
Intellectual Ventures Attack on Xilinx Patents among the Filings in the Two Weeks September 16-28, 2012
| October 1, 2012
The feud between Intellectual Ventures and Xilinx heated up last month when IV requested inter partes review of four Xilinx patents (see inter partes review Request Nos. (6) to (8) and (10)). Xilinx sued IV for declaratory judgment of invalidity and non-infringement last year, and has since requested reexamination of a number of IV patents.
Microsoft requested inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 6,757,717owned by Proxyconn claiming a data access system (see inter partes review Request No. (11)). The two companies are involved in litigation in the Central District of California.
Attack on Two Crocs Shoe Patents, Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of August 20, 2012
| August 27, 2012
Earlier this year, Crocs sued CVS Caremark for infringement of two patents claiming certain shoe designs. CVS has now requested reexamination of those patents (see inter partes Request Nos. (6) & (12)).
Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, has requested reexamination of two Intellectual Ventures patents; this is in addition to the requests Motorola filed last week against two other IV patents. (see inter partes Request Nos. (5) & (7)). The four IV patents are the subject of an infringement action between the companies, now pending in Delaware.
Research In Motion has requested reexamination of two MobileMedia Ideas patents related to speech signal transmission (see ex parte Request Nos. (1) & (9)). MobileMedia is suing RIM for infringement of the patents in the Northern District of Texas. One of the patents was originally owned by Sony and the other, by Nokia.
The increase in the number of requests filed against medical device patents continued last week, with requests being filed against Bard, Delpor, and Zoll Medical patents.
Motorola Mobility Seeks Reexamination of Two Intellectual Ventures Portable Computer Patents, Week of August 13, 2012
| August 20, 2012
On Thursday Motorola Mobility requested reexamination of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,120,462 and 7,409,450 owned by Intellectual Ventures, that concern the transfer of files between computers, often for game devices (see inter partes Request Nos. (3) & (4)). IV has sued Motorola for infringing the two patents, plus four other patents.
Two paper-filed reexamination requests came to light last week. They challenge U.S. Patent Nos. 6,465,961 and 6,634,770 (see inter partes Request Nos. (17) & (18)) owned by the CAO Group and claiming semiconductor lighting systems. The requests were filed several weeks ago by GE Lighting who has been sued by CAO for infringement of the two patents. Reexamination requests filed by paper, rather than electronically, often do not appear on the Patent Office files for many days.
Challenge to Suffolk Technologies “Snippet” Internet Search Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of August 3, 2012
| August 13, 2012
Suffolk Technologies sued AOL and Google in June for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,334,132 that claims an apparatus for summarizing “data sets” for use in searching the Internet. On Friday, an undisclosed party requested reexamination of the ‘132 patent (see ex parte Request No. (9)). Companies such as AOL and Google typically choose inter partes reexamination, but only ex parte reexamination was available against the ‘132 patent because of its early filing date. The ‘132 patent and a second patent in Suffolk’s case, U.S. Patent No. 6,081,835, were originally assigned to British Telecommunication but later transferred to Suffolk. A request against the ‘835 patent is expected soon.
Sony Computer Entertainment requested reexamination of a Walker Digital patent concerning an on-line tournament system (see inter partes Request No. (2)). . Walker Digital has sued Sony and host of other software companies for infringing the patent.
Challenge to Immersion Touchpad Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of July 30, 2012
| August 6, 2012
Immersion Corporation is currently suing HTC both in District Court in Delaware and at the U.S. ITC for infringement of six patents that claim “haptic feedback for touchpads.” The accused products are cellular telephones and smart phones. A third party, perhaps HTC, has now requested ex parte reexamination of one of those patents, U.S. Patent No. 7,969,288 (see ex parte Request No. (2)). Requests for the other five patents are likely to follow. Reexamination requests for patents of this type of technology are normally inter partes, especially with a requester such as HTC.
Patent disputes have a way of escalating dramatically if a good deal of money is involved, even where the technology is comparatively simple. A good example is the fight going on between Brass Smith and Advanced Design Manufacturing over U.S. Patent No. 6,588,863 which claims sneeze guards. Brass Smith sued ADM for infringement of the ‘863 patent, and two ex parte reexamination requests were subsequently filed against the patent. Most of the ‘863 claims were rejected, so Brass Smith added 125 more. And on Friday, an unidentified third party, presumably ADM, filed a 500 page reexamination against the original claims and the 125 new claims (see ex parte Request No. (8)).
Attack on CareFusion Medication-Delivery Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of July 23, 2012
| July 30, 2012
An as-yet unknown party has requested reexamination of CareFusion 303’s U.S. Patent No. 7,171,277 which claims system for controlling the delivery of medications to a patient (see inter partes Request No. (3)). CareFusion is pursuing separate actions against Hospira and Braun Medical for infringement of the ‘277 patent. CareFusion has also sued for infringement of a second related patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,835,927 which is the subject of an earlier reexamination, already on appeal to the Patent Office Board.
There were also requests filed against two Ronald Katz telephone-interface patents (see ex parte Request Nos. (2) & (5)).
Stryker Attack on Six Hospital Bed Patents, among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of July 16, 2012
| July 24, 2012
Last week featured two major reexamination filings. The first was a set of requests filed by Stryker against six hospital bed patents owned by Hill-Rom Services (see inter partes Request Nos. 14-15 and 17-19 and ex parte Request No. 4). Hill-Rom had sued Stryker for infringement of those patents in the Western District of Wisconsin.
The second major was a set of requests filed by Nest Labs Inc. against seven patents claiming thermostats and owned by Honeywell (see inter partes Requests Nos. (1) to (7)). The two companies are in an infringement action in Minnesota regarding those patents.
In both instances, we expect that the requester will now ask the trial judge for stay of the litigation pending completion of the reexamination.
