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
Reexamination Requests against Univ. of Washington Medical Imaging Patent among those Filed Week of July 9, 2012
| July 16, 2012
NeuroGraphix has filed a series of infringement actions, including four last Wednesday, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,560,360 that claims a medical imaging device and is owned by the University of Washington. NeuroGraphix is the exclusive licensee of the ‘360 patent. The accused infringers include the University of California, Philips, Tufts College, Boston University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess and the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Last Tuesday an anonymous party requested reexamination of the ‘360 patent (see ex parte Request No. (2)).
Cisco requested reexamination of a data redirection system patent owned by Linksmart Wireless Technology (see inter partes Request No. (1)). Linksmart has sued Cisco, T-Mobile and a number of others for infringement of the patent.
LG Reexamination Request against OSRAM LED Patent, one of those Filed Week of July 2, 2012
| July 9, 2012
Last June OSRAM GmbH filed an ITC complaint against LG Innotek and Samsung, accusing them of importing into the United States LEDs, LED monitors and LED television sets that infringe 12 patents, one of them being U.S. Patent No. 7,162,261 claiming a light-radiating semiconductor component with a luminescence conversion element. (Certain Light Emitting Diodes, 337-TA-785). The trial starts today, and the investigation has a February 11, 2013 deadline for completion. On Friday LG requested reexamination of the ‘261 patent (see inter partes Request No. (3)).
So far this is the first reexamination for any of the OSRAM patents in the case, but others might follow, especially for the ‘732, ‘500, 283 and ‘621 patents that concern technology similar to that of the ‘261 patent. If the PTO rejects the ‘261 claims in reexamination, and if the ITC finds that the ‘261 is valid and infringed, the ITC will again face the question of whether it should issue import relief based on a patent in reexamination.
Google Request for Reexamination of Walker Digital Patent, among those Filed Week of June 25, 2012
| July 2, 2012
Last year Walker Digital sued BMW, MapQuest, TomTom, Teleman, Blusens, NDrive, Samsung and Google for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,199,014 claiming a vehicle navigation system (see inter partes Request No. (2)). Last Tuesday Google requested reexamination of the ‘014 patent. A motion to stay the litigation is likely to follow.
Reexamination was requested for Ronald Katz’ U.S. Patent No. 5,898,762 claiming a telephone interface system (see ex parte Request No. (2)). Katz has sued Charter, Time Warner Cable, EarthLink, DIRECTV and U.S. Cellular for infringing the ‘762 patent.
Friday is the most popular day for filing reexamination requests, unless you are the Troll Buster Jeff Oster who filed two more requests on Saturday, these against two Life Technologies hybridization assay patents, on behalf of Bioresearch (see ex parte Request Nos. (9) & (10)).
Reexamination Requested by Google against Two More British Telecom Patents
| June 14, 2012
On Tuesday we reported that reexamination had been requested against U.S. Patent No. 6,151,309, owned by British Telecommunications. BT had sued Google in Delaware for infringement of the ‘309 and five other patents, all related to network communications, data navigation, data transfer, and data storage among them. The accused products include Google Android, Google Music, Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Search, though not the Google Patent.
Patent Office records now show that reexamination was requested on the same day against two other BT patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,169,515 & 6,650,284. PTO records also reveal Google as the requester.
Reexamination Requested Against British Telecom Patent, Perhaps by Google
| June 12, 2012
Last December British Telecommunications sued Google in Delaware for infringement of six patents related to network communications, data navigation, data transfer, and data storage among them U.S. Patent No. 6,151,309. The accused products include Google Android, Google Music, Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Search, though not Google Patent. Yesterday ex parte reexamination was requested by an as-yet-unidentified party, presumably Google. Because of the early filing date of the ‘309 patent application, inter partes reexamination was not available.
Requests against the other five British Telecom patents might follow.
Troll Busters®’ Attack on Nucleic Acid Patent one of the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of June 4, 2012
| June 11, 2012
Jeff Oster, who operates out of offices on Mercer Island, Washington under the descriptive nom de plume “Troll Busters®,” was busy last week. On Wednesday he filed a 356-page request, containing 16 distinct SNQs, seeking reexamination U.S. Patent No. 5,928,907 (see ex parte Request No. (6)). It’s always difficult for an outsider to measure the strength of a reexamination request, but this one has the look and heft of an effective one. The Request begins with the description of Troll Busters as “working to promote new technologies by protecting the public from over-broad patent rights used for extortion and ‘troll-like’ demands….”
Arteris requested reexamination of Sonics’ on-chip system patent (see inter partes Request No. (4)). This is at least the second Sonics patent challenged by Arteris. Sonics has sued Arteris in the Northern District of California for infringement of those two patents, plus six other patents.
Dell Attacks on Three Round Rock Research Patents among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of May 29, 2012
| June 4, 2012
On Wednesday Dell requested reexamination of three computer systems patents owned by Round Rock Research (see ex parte Request Nos. (4), (5) & (6)). Last October Round Rock sued Dell in Delaware for infringement of ten other patents. Each of the patents is part of the portfolio that Round Rock bought from Micron.
Xilinx filed a reexamination request against another Intellectual Ventures mobile network patent (see inter partes Request No. (6)). Xilinx has sought reexamination of quite a number of IV patents over the past year.
The winner for the most requests was Hayward Industries who filed against four Pentair Water Pool and Spa (see inter partes Request Nos. (7) to (10)). The two companies are in an infringement action in North Carolina.
Anonymous Attack on Facebook’s User News Feed Patent among the Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of May 21, 2012
| May 29, 2012
This past March Yahoo! sued Facebook for infringement of 10 social networking patents, and soon thereafter Facebook counter-claimed for infringement of 10 of its own social networking patents, most notably U.S. Patent 7,669,123 claiming a method for displaying “a news feed in a social network environment,” specifically, a news feed about people a user knows. An unnamed party has now requested reexamination of Facebook’s ‘123 patent (see ex parte Request No. (2)). Yahoo! denies that it filed the request. The ‘123 patent attracted a fair amount of negative comment in the blogosphere when it issued in 2010, most of it suggesting that the ‘123 claims were impossibly broad and could stifle competition.
Samsung requested reexamination of a video pixel labeling patent owned by ObjectVideo (see inter partes Request No. (1)). ObjectVideo has sued Samsung and others in the ITC for infringement of the patent. A parallel infringement action in the Eastern District of Virginia has been stayed pending completion of the ITC case.
Finally, reexamination was requested by an undisclosed party for U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949, that claims a touch screen and names Steve Jobs as an inventor (see ex parte Request No. (8)). Apple has sued Motorola, Samsung and others for infringing the ‘949 patent. Apple’s case against Motorola is scheduled to go trial in June before Judge Posner. Excellent reports on these Apple cases can be found on almost a daily basis at http://www.fosspatents.com/ written by our friend Florian Mueller.
Facebook Attack on Wireless Ink Patent among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of May 14, 2012
| May 21, 2012
Last Monday Facebook requested reexamination of Wireless Ink’s U.S. Patent 8,135,801 which claims a system for enhancing accessibility to data over a network (see inter partes Request No. (1)). The ‘801 patent is the subject of an infringement action between the companies in New York. Notably, Facebook has filed this reexamination request before answering Wireless’s complaint in court. Facebook – like Apple and Google – has been quick to resort to reexamination when sued for infringement. Wireless has also accused Facebook of infringing two other patents – U.S. Patent Nos. 7,599,983 and 7,908,342 – in unrelated infringement actions.
For the most part, foreign companies have been slow to use reexamination as a tool for attacking U.S. patents owned by competitors. An exception is Chinese companies, who seem to be quick studies when it comes to reexamination. For instance, last week Zhejiang Trimone and Fujian Hongan filed a request against a circuit interrupter patent owned by Leviton (see inter partes Request No. (4)).
Reexamination was also requested by CBS Interactive and a series of other media companies for two more wireless messaging patents owned by Helferich Patent Licensing (see inter partes Request Nos. (3) & (7)). See last week’s post for other Helferich reexaminations.
Kyocera Challenge to ADC Personal Communicator Patent among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of May 7, 2012
| May 14, 2012
This past Friday Kyocera requested reexamination of an ADC Technology patent – U.S. Patent No. 6,985,136 – for a “personal communicator,” i.e., a portable computer for wireless data transmission (see inter partes Request No. (4)). ADC is currently pursuing an infringement action against Kyocera in Illinois. The ‘136 patent survived an earlier reexamination attempt, with the patentability of all claims confirmed.
Axis Communications requested reexamination of two Walker Digital Internet surveillance patents (see ex parte Request Nos. (13) & (14)). The companies are currently involved in an infringement action in Delaware regarding the patents.
