District Court Precludes Evidence of Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s Denial of Institution of Inter Partes Review at Trial

As this patent infringement action proceeded to trial, Google filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of Google’s petitions for Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) of claims of the patent-in-suit and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) denial of institution of those petitions. Google had previously filed petitions with the PTAB seeking to invalidate the patent-in-suit and the PTAB had declined to institute review of the petitions.

In analyzing whether the denial of the petitions should be admitted at trial, the district court noted that under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, the district court had discretion to exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury.

The district court then determined that in both IPR proceedings, the PTAB’s decision not to institute was reached on a record that was less than complete and without the benefit of a full adversarial proceeding. As a result, the district court concluded that the “danger of prejudice and confusion outweighs the probative value of this evidence. There will be no reference at the trial to the PTAB’s decision not to institute Inter Partes Review against claims of the ‘550 patent.”

Accordingly, the district court granted the motion in limine to exclude the evidence of the IPR petitions and the PTAB’s decision not to institute review.

Art+Com-Innovationpool GMBH v. Google Inc., Case No. 1:14-217-TBD (D. Del. May 16, 2016)

The authors of www.PatentLawyerBlog.com are patent trial lawyers at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP. For more information about this case, contact Stan Gibson at 310.201.3548 or SGibson@jmbm.com.