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
Apotex Seeks Stay of Sanofi-Aventis Case
| January 14, 2010
The possibility of an accused infringer attacking the validity of a patent through reexamination, even after an adverse decision from the CAFC, was demonstrated anew last week.
On August 17, 2009, we reported that the PTO had granted Apotex’s request for ex parte reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 4,847,265 owned by Sanofi-Aventis and covering its anti-blood clot drug PLAVIX®. Since then, the PTO has issued a non-final rejection of most of the ‘265 claims as being obvious over each of several prior art references “in view of the state of the art,” as well as being unpatentable for obviousness-type double patenting in view of Sanofi-Aventis’ own U.S. Patent No. 4,529,596.1
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Nucleic Acid Case Becomes More Complicated
| January 4, 2010
This past September, Life Technologies Corporation and Applied Biosystems sued Illumina and Solexa in Delaware for infringing three U.S. patents by the sale of nucleic acid sequencing equipment called “Genome Analyzer” and “Genome Analyzer II.” Three weeks later Illumina and Solexa counter-claimed, alleging that Life Technologies and Applied Biosystems market “SOLiD” sequencing systems that infringe four patents belonging to Illumina and Solexa.
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Textron Patent Challenged
| December 14, 2009
Earlier this fall, E-Z-GO (a division of Textron) sued Club Car in Georgia, alleging infringement of its U.S. Patent No. 7,332,881 entitled “AC Drive System for Electrically Operated Vehicle.” The drive systems are used in Club Car’s Carryall 2 LSV and Carryall 6 LSV which resemble golf carts.
This past week, on December 7, Club Car struck back at E-Z-GO by filing a request for inter partes reexamination of the ‘881 patent. Club Car’s request cites eight prior art references, though it is unclear how many of those references were considered during the original ‘881 prosecution.
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Karaoke Patents to be Reexamined
| December 1, 2009
The PTO announced today that it has ordered reexamination of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,488,508 and 6,702,585, for information distribution systems in video games, particularly karaoke video games. The ‘508 and ‘585 patents are owned by ADC Technology Inc. of Nagoya, Japan, and are the subject of the litigation ADC v. Microsoft.
The reexaminations were requested by Microsoft, who asserted that each of four references raised a substantial new question of patentability for the ‘508 patent, and that each of three references raised a substantial new question of patentability for the ‘585 patent. The PTO found, however, that not all the references were actually prior art, and limited the reexaminations to Sanyo JP 01-289221 and Bush ‘863 patent.
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Facebook Files Second Reexamination Request
| November 13, 2009
Facebook has filed its second reexamination request attacking the validity of U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761. Late last year, the owner of the ‘761 patent, Leader Technologies, had sued Facebook in Delaware for infringement.
Today’s inter partes request asserts 10 substantial new questions of patentability (SNQs) based on references that were not cited or considered during the original ‘761 prosecution.
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Flash Chromatography Case Stayed
| November 10, 2009
Scientific Plastic Products’ case against Biotage has been stayed pending the PTO’s resolution of inter partes reexaminations for the patents-in-suit.
On April 3, 2009, Scientific Plastics sued Biotage, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,138,061, 7,381,327 and 7,410,571 regarding low pressure flash chromatographic cartridges. Biotage replied on August 21 by filing reexamination requests against each of the three patents and three days later, moved to stay the case. Judge Anello granted the stay on October 6.
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Reexamination for Expired Digital Technology Patent
| October 1, 2009
The PTO granted ex parte reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 5,051,799 belonging to Digital Technology Licensing, and entitled “Digital Output Transducer.” The request was filed by Kyocera Wireless.
Although the ‘799 patent expired on February 17, 2009, a request for reexamination may be filed at any time during the patent’s “period of enforceability.” That period is determined by adding six years to the date on which the patent expires, so that in this case the period of enforceability extends to February 17, 2015. One qualification, however, is that there is no possibility of amending claims of an expired patent.
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RFID Case Stayed for Reexaminations
| September 23, 2009
On August 3, 2009, we reported that Toray had moved to stay the law suit filed against it by Avery Dennison, in view of a series of inter partes reexaminations that Toray had filed. In the suit, Avery Dennison accuses Toray of infringing three patents related to RFID labels.
Judge Patel has now granted the stay. She noted that the PTO had issued Office Actions rejecting all the claims of each of the three patents, and that Avery Dennison did not oppose the stay.
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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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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