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
Stay Denied in Bed Rail Case
| September 9, 2009
Judge Ann Montgomery has denied the motion of the accused infringer to stay the District Court proceeding in Regalo Int’l v. DEX Prods. (D. Minn.), pending resolution of three reexaminations.
Regalo sued DEX in July 2008 for infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,952,846, 7,137,158 and 7,178,184, each entitled “Mattress Hugging Bed Rail.” DEX filed requests for reexamination on June 19, 2009, against each of the patents. Shortly thereafter the PTO ordered that the three patents be reexamined. DEX moved that the District Court case be stayed pending the PTO’s resolution of the reexaminations.
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Merck Singulair® Claims Rejected
| September 3, 2009
This past May, the PTO granted a request for reexamination of Merck’s U.S. Patent No. 5,565,473 (see archive report of May 20, 2009), identifying substantial new questions of patentability based on seven prior art references. The ‘473 patent covers Merck’s well-known allergy drug SINGULAIR®.
The PTO has now issued a non-final rejection of each of the claims under reexamination, finding that claims 1, 7, and 18-22 are unpatentable for nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting over the claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,428,033 in view of U.S. Patent No. 5,104,882.
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Data Encryption Claims are Confirmed
| September 1, 2009
The PTO has filed a notice of intent to issue a reexamination certificate regarding the claims of Luciano Paone’s U.S. Patent No. 6,259,789. The ‘789 patent relates to a method for encrypting data, employing a block cipher encryption algorithm.
Paone sued Microsoft in New York in July 2007, for infringing the ‘789 patent. In May 2008, Microsoft countered by filing the present reexamination request, and the PTO subsequently determined that two substantial new questions of patentability were raised with respect to each of the claims identified in the request.
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Reexamination Ordered on Belden Patent
| August 31, 2009
The PTO granted ex parte reexamination of all four claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,074,503 owned by Belden CDT of Canada. The PTO found that a substantial new question of patentability was raised by each of four prior art references, as well as by various combinations of references.
The request was filed by Superior Essex. This is one of a series of reexamination requests filed by Superior against Belden patents. For a description of the dispute in the PTO and in District Court between Superior and Belden, see our article of July 8, 2009.
PTO Denies TiVo Petition to Vacate Reex. Order
| August 21, 2009
The PTO has denied TiVo’s petition to vacate the PTO’s order of January 7, 2009, granting reexamination of TiVo’s U.S. Patent No. 6,233,389.
TiVo argued that reexamination should not have been granted because the prior art reference relied upon in the request was cited and initialed by the examiners in an earlier reexamination of the ‘389 patent. This, TiVo stated, meant that the earlier reexamination examiners had “considered all portions of the cited references they said were considered.” Accordingly, there was no substantial new question of patentability (“SNQ”).
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PTO Applies Extension Rules Strictly
| August 21, 2009
The Director of the Central Reexamination Unit at the PTO has shown again that the rules for extensions of time in reexaminations are strictly applied.
The reexamination request was filed by Microsoft in November 2008, asserting that claims of U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449 were invalid over an earlier patent and article. The ‘449 patent was the subject of i4i v. Microsoft (CA No. 6:07CV113, E.D. Tex.), in which Judge Leonard Davis permanently enjoined Microsoft from infringement of the patent on August 11, 2009.
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PTO to Reexamine Plavix® Patent
| August 17, 2009
The PTO granted today an ex parte request by Apotex Corp. to reexamine Sanofi-Aventis’ U.S. Patent No. 4,847,265. The ‘265 patent claims an enantiomer which prevents blood platelets from clotting, thereby reducing the chances for heart attack or stroke.
The request is the latest development in an on-going dispute between Sanofi-Aventis and Apotex regarding the latter’s generic pharmaceutical Plavix®. After Apotex filed an ANDA for Plavix® in 2001, Sanofi-Aventis sued Apotex for infringement of the ‘265 patent. The trial judge ruled in 2007 that the ‘265 patent was valid and enforceable, and this past December the CAFC affirmed those validity and enforceability rulings in favor of the patentee Sanofi-Aventis.
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Non-Final Rejections in Reexamination Not Admissible in Jury Trial
| August 14, 2009
The CAFC ruled today that non-final reexamination determinations are “of little relevance” to a jury’s consideration of the obviousness issue. Since the risk of the jury being “confused” by such determinations was high, the CAFC affirmed the trial judge’s exclusion of such a determination at trial.
In that case, Callaway had accused Acushnet of infringing a series of patents claiming golf balls. Acushnet replied by filing inter partes reexamination requests with the PTO, asserting that the patents were invalid over certain prior art.
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TiVo “Time Warp” Claims Rejected
| August 4, 2009
The use of reexamination as an aid in litigation was demonstrated again today, this time as a way of promoting a particular claim construction.
In January 2004 TiVo sued Dish Network Corp. in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of TiVo’s U.S. Patent No. 6,233,389. The ‘389 patent claims a process for simultaneous storage and playback of multimedia data – it allows a television viewer to store one broadcast while watching a different broadcast.
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Toray Moves to Stay Avery Case
| August 3, 2009
Avery Dennison Corporation sued Toray Int’l last December in the Northern District of California for infringement of three patents relating to RFID labels: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,951,596, 7,361,251 and 7,368,032. Toray replied by filing requests for inter partes reexamination against each of the three patents.
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