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
McNeil Vindicated at CAFC
| July 31, 2009
McNeil-PPC, Inc. filed a request for reexamination of its U.S. Patent No. 6,310,269 in November 2002, and today, after more than six years and a series of adverse decisions at the PTO, it finally prevailed at the CAFC.
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Claims Lack Written Description Support
| July 27, 2009
The CAFC has affirmed a Patent Office ruling that the patent specification in the reexamination application, In re Reiffin Family Trust, failed to provide written description support for certain claims sought to add to U.S. Patent No. 5,694,604, rendering those claims unpatentable.
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Funai ‘538 Patent Claims Confirmed
| July 23, 2009
Funai won an important victory today when the PTO confirmed the patentability of the claims of Funai’s U.S. Patent No. 6,064,538. The ‘538 patent was one of the patents in Funai v. Daewoo. (See our description of the case this past March).
The PTO had previously granted the request for reexamination on June 5, 2009.
Kinetic Concepts Patent Wins Reexamination Victory
| July 22, 2009
Kinetic Concepts, Inc. (KCI) won an important battle today at the Patent Office in its ongoing patent war with competitor BlueSky Medical today.
KCI sued BlueSky on May 14, 2007, in the Eastern District of Texas for infringing U.S. Patent No. 7,216,651 regarding a system for healing wounds. The case was later transferred to the Western District of Texas which had handled an earlier dispute involving related patents. More significantly, though, an ex parte reexamination request (90/008,693) and an inter partes reexamination request (95/001,048) were subsequently filed with the Patent Office, attacking the ‘651 patent on the basis of a long series of prior art references.
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Superior Essex Files Three Inter Partes Requests
| July 8, 2009
Superior Essex has now filed requests for inter partes reexamination against at least three data cable patents owned by Belden CDT of Canada. Belden had sued Superior Essex in January 2008 for infringement of six patents. Two more patents were added in a Second Amended Compliant filed by Belden this past April.
Superior Essex has now replied with reexamination requests against Belden’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,570,095, 6,596,944 and 7,339,116.
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Mini Visa Card Claims Declared Invalid
| June 30, 2009
Vanguard ID Systems Inc. filed a Request in February 2004, for inter partes reexamination of claims 1-17, 20-35, 38-54 and 57 of U.S. Patent No. 6,471,127. The ‘127 patent belongs to Bank of America Corp. and claims a card having a size smaller than normal credit cards, in which “the encoded data can be read by a magnetic stripe reader configured to read magnetic stripes compliant with ISO/IEC 7811.”
The examiner rejected each of the claims on the basis of the prior art references identified in Vanguard’s Request. The Patent Office Board of Appeals has now affirmed the rejection.
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Merck’s Singular Patent to be Reexamined
| May 20, 2009
The Patent Office has granted reexamination on Merck’s U.S. Patent No. 5,565,473 which covers its extremely successful allergy drug SINGULAIR. Sales of the drug are said to total about $4 billion per year.
The Patent Office concluded that each of seven prior art references cited in the Reexamination Request “raises a substantial new question of patentability as to claims 1, 7 and 18-22 of the ‘473 patent. One of the references was cited during the original ‘473 prosecution, but the others were not.
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Request Filed Against Stryker Patent
| April 22, 2009
The law firm McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff has filed a request for ex parte reexamination of Stryker Technologies’ U.S. Patent No. 6,352,559 entitled “ENDOPROSTHETIC BONE JOINT DEVICES.” The request asserts that most of the claims are obvious over a reference (either alone or with other art) which was cited, but apparently not discussed, during the original ‘559 prosecution.
The ‘559 patent was alleged to be infringed in Btg. Int.l. Ltd. v. Zimmer Holdings (1:04cv85). The case ended in 2006 with a stipulated dismissal with prejudice.
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Reexamination Request Filed Against Funai Patent
| March 17, 2009
After some initial procedural difficulty, an ex parte request for reexamination was filed with the PTO, alleging a substantial new question of patentability with respect to claims 1-4 of U.S. Patent No. 6,021,018. The ‘018 patent is owned by Funai Electric Co., Ltd., and is entitled “LOADING MECHANISM FOR LOADING A VIDEO CASSETTE.” This is a mechanical subsystem for opening and closing a VCR door.
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Honeywell Filed Three Requests
| January 29, 2009
Honeywell International requested the PTO to conduct inter partes reexamination of three BorgWarner patents claiming titanium compressor wheels – U.S. Patent Nos. 6,629,556, 6,663,347, and 6,904,949.
These new requests become part of an ongoing dispute between the two companies, the centerpiece of which is a suit in the Western District of North Carolina in which Honeywell accuses BorgWarner of infringing those three patents. On March 18, 2008, Honeywell requested ex parte reexamination against the same three patents.
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