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In Butamax Advanced Biofuels, LLC v. Gevo, Inc., the patent owner requested permission to be excused from the oral hearing. The patent owner cited the expense of having counsel prepare for and attend the hearing. Instead, the patent owner preferred to rest on its written response to the petition. The patent owner did not request that the Board cancel the oral hearing, which had been requested only by the petitioner. Having requested the hearing, the Board held that the petitioner had a statutory right to a hearing. The Board also emphasized that a hearing would be helpful to the Board to answer questions it may have regarding the issues presented in the proceeding.

The Board instead raised the possibility of attendance via telephone. The patent owner declined this option again citing the financial burden of preparing for and participating in the hearing. The Board stressed its expectation that “counsel will attend all proceedings which may materially affect [the patent owner’s] interests.” However, the Board allowed that at the hearing counsel for patent owner could choose to rest on the submitted briefs and not make oral argument. The Board also offered to allow backup counsel to attend the hearing in place of its lead counsel.
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In an inter partes review Medtronic Inc. et al. v. Troy R. Norred, M.D., the Petitioner sought guidance from the Board regarding the Patent Owner’s objections during the deposition of an expert appearing on behalf of the Patent Owner. According to the Petitioner, the Patent Owner made speaking objections and suggested answer to the witness. For example, petitioner read a representative example of Patent Owner’s objection, which began “‘Objection, misleading . . .’ and then went on to explain at some length that the question was misleading because it asked for a conclusion from the witness based on only a portion of a patent that Patent Owner contends was ‘taken out of context.'”

The Board began its analysis by reciting the Patent Trial Practice Guide’s instructions regarding the proper method of objecting during a deposition:

Consistent with the policy expressed in Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and corresponding § 42.1(b), unnecessary objections, “speaking” objections, and coaching of witnesses in proceedings before the Board are strictly prohibited. Cross-examination testimony should be a question and answer conversation between the examining lawyer and the witness. The defending lawyer must not act as an intermediary, interpreting questions, deciding which questions the witness should answer, and helping the witness formulate answers while testifying.

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3. An objection must be stated concisely in a nonargumentative and non-suggestive manner. Counsel must not make objections or statements that suggest an answer to a witness. Objections should be limited to a single word or term. Examples of objections that would be properly stated are: “Objection, form”; “Objection, hearsay”; “Objection, relevance”; and “Objection, foundation.” Examples of objections that would not be proper are: “Objection, I don’t understand the question”; “Objection, vague”; “Objection, take your time answering the question”; and “Objection, look at the document before you answer.” An objecting party must give a clear and concise explanation of an objection if requested by the party taking the testimony or the objection is waived.

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In Norman IP Holdings v. TP-Link Technologies, Co., et al., the Defendants moved to stay the litigation pending completion of an inter partes review involving the patents-in-suit. The plaintiff did not respond to the motion. Thereafter, the court granted the motion and stayed the litigation pending completion of the IPR involving claim 6 of the ‘597 Patent.

Plaintiff’s complaint alleges ADTRAN infringes U.S. Patent Nos. 5,502,689 (the “‘689 Patent”), 5,530,597 (the “‘597 Patent”), and 5,592,555 (the “‘555 Patent”). Specifically, the plaintiff asserts claims 5 and 6 of the ‘689 Patent, claims 1-6, 10, and 11 of the ‘597 Patent, and claims 10, 12, and 51 of the ‘555 Patent against ADTRAN, the sole remaining defendant at the time the court decided the stay motion. The court noted that there have been 10 petitions for post-grant review of the three patents asserted by Norman. A total of 33 separate claims from the asserted patents have been canceled in the four proceedings that have been completed. The remaining six proceedings were pending at the time of the filing. In concurrent litigation, Norman alleged Nissan North America, Inc. (“Nissan”) infringes the same asserted claims of the ‘689 and ‘597 patents. Nissan filed a petition for IPR as to claim 6 of the ‘597 patent and claims 5 and 6 of the ‘689 patent. On September 23, 2014 PTAB granted Nissan’s petition for IPR as to the asserted claims in the ‘689 and ‘597 patents. During the October 7, 2014 hearing ADTRAN agreed, if the court granted a stay of the present litigation, “to be estopped as to invalidity contentions raised and adjudicated in the [Nissan] IPR proceedings.”
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In GSI Commerce Solutions, Inc. v. Lakshmi Arunachalam, GSI filed a petition seeking covered business method patent review of U.S. Patent No. 8,346,894 relating to “facilat[ing] real-time two-way transactions, as opposed to deferred transactions, e.g., e-mail.” CBM2014-00101. The Petitioner filed its petition seeking invalidity based on lack of written description, lack of enablement, indefiniteness and obviousness. On October 7, 2014, the Board denied the CBM review finding that the petitioner failed to establish that the claimed inventions were not technological inventions under 37 C.F.R. § 42.301(a). Notably, the Board’s decision was made without any briefing from the patent owner on this issue, who elected not to file a preliminary response.

In reaching its decision to deny CBM review, the Board rejected the petitioner’s argument that the ‘894 patent does not recite a technological invention because “claim 2 recites only known technologies, such as a processor, a machine readable storage device, a signal, an application, a network, the Web, an object, and a data structure.” The petitioner further argued that the ‘894 patent recites a combination of structures that achieve normal, expected and predictable results by “allowing a user to complete from a Web application the types of transactions he or she can already perform in person.”
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In Ford Motor Company v. Paice LLC & The Abell Foundation, Inc., Ford filed a petition seeking inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 8,214,097 relating to a hybrid vehicle having, among other things, both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. IPR2014-00570. On September 30, 2014, the Board instituted a trial on the ‘097 patent, finding that Ford’s petition demonstrated that there was a reasonable likelihood that it would prevail in showing unpatentability of claims 30-33, 35, 36 and 39 of the ‘097 patent. The Board denied review (on both anticipation and obviousness grounds) as to claim 38, which requires that the battery supply power to the electric motor “at a peak of at least 500 volts under peak load conditions.”

In reaching its decision to institute a trial, the Board rejected Paice’s argument that Ford is barred or estopped under 37 C.F.R. § 42.104(a) from requesting an inter partes review due to an alleged breach of an arbitration agreement between the parties. “According to Paice, the arbitration agreement includes ‘unambiguous terms’ that purportedly limit Ford’s ability to ‘challenge the claims of the ‘097 patent.'” Paice argues that Ford is in breach of those terms and therefore failed to demonstrate that it had the requisite standing to file the instant petition.
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In Trulia, Inc. v. Zillow, Inc., Trulia filed a petition seeking covered business method review of U.S. Patent No. 7,970,674 relating to automatically determining a current value for a real estate property. CBM2013-00056. On March 10, the Board instituted a trial on the ‘674 patent and set a hearing date of November 19, 2014. On July 28, 2014, the Parties publicly announced a merger, which is expected to close sometime in 2015. However, the merger is currently pending review by the FTC, whose review is dictated by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act under 15 U.S.C. § 18(a). Under this section the initial waiting period expired on September 3, 2014.

In light of the merger, on August 18, the parties filed a joint motion to request to extend the dates by one year, but no less than six months in view of the FTC’s review and expected approval of the merger. The PTAB asked the parties to supplement their motion after the expiration of the initial waiting period. On September 3, the FTC extended the waiting period in a second request for information regarding the merger. On September 12, the parties filed a supplemental notice to provide additional information requested by the Board, including whether the extent to which the parties are bound by the merger agreement and an explanation regarding why the parties are unable to settle this proceeding in an agreement that takes into account the likelihood of FTC approval. Following the Parties’ submission, the Board denied both a 1-year extension and an extension of six months.
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In Microsoft Corporation v. Virnetx Inc., Microsoft filed a petition seeking inter partes review of U.S. Patent No. 7,188,180 (“the ‘180 patent”) on May 19, 2014. The ‘180 patent was asserted in a complaint for VirnetX Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., Case No. 6:07-cv-00080 (E.D. Tex. filed April 5, 2007) (“the 2007 complaint”), and a complaint for VirnetX Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., Case No. 6:10-cv-00094 (E.D. Tex. filed March 17, 2010) (“the 2010 complaint”). The ‘180 Patent also is involved in VirnetX Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., Docket No. 6:13-cv-00351 (E.D. Tex.) (“the 2013 complaint”) as well as other pending litigation, two inter partes reexaminations (one concluded and one pending), and a second, concurrently filed inter partes review.

The issue before the Board was whether Section 315(b)’s one year time limitation to file a petition after being served with a complaint barred Petitioner’s IPR in light of the 2007 and 2010 complaints or whether the time should run from the service of the 2013 complaint:

Petitioner was served with a complaint alleging infringement of the ‘180 patent on three occasions. The first complaint (i.e., the 2007 complaint) was served on April 5, 2007, and the second complaint (i.e., the 2010 complaint) was served on March 17, 2010. The 2007 complaint and the 2010 complaint were both served more than one year prior to the date on which the Petitioner filed the present Petition requesting inter partes review (February 4, 2014). The third complaint (i.e., the 2013 complaint) was served less than one year prior to the date on which the Petitioner filed the present Petition requesting inter partes review…As described above, 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) states that an inter partes review may not be instituted if the petition is filed more than one year after the date of service on Petitioner of a complaint alleging infringement of the patent.

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In Coho Licensing LLC v. Glam Media, et al., Coho filed suits against defendants AOL Inc. (“AOL”), Glam Media Inc., Ning Inc., LinkedIn Corp., Rovi Corp., and Twitter, Inc. (collectively referred to as “Defendants”). On May 16, 2014, AOL filed petitions for IPR challenging the validity of all the claims of two of the three asserted patents, and, on June 17, 2014, AOL filed a petition for IPR challenging the validity of all claims of the third patent. Defendants subsequently moved to stay the above captioned cases pending the IPR. As summarized below, the Court granted AOL’s motion to stay and granted the motions of the remaining defendants on the condition that they agree “to be estopped from asserting any invalidity contention that was actually raised and finally adjudicated in the IPR proceedings.”
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In Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. Ford Motor Co., Affinity moved in limine to exclude any reference to the decision of the PTAB regarding an inter partes reexamination filed by a defendant in an earlier case involving a related patent, i.e.., one stemming from the same application and thus sharing the same specification. In the prior decision, the PTAB found that the specification lacked written description for the term “soft button.” Affinity argued that the PTAB’s decision should be excluded because it conflicted with a prior decision of the district court on the same issue.
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In the Mexichem Amanco Holdings S.A. de C.V. v. Honeywell International, Inc., the Patent Owner moved for additional discovery to depose a third party witness whose declarations were relied upon by Petitioner in its Reply to the Patent Owner’s Response. The witness originally submitted declarations in reexamination proceedings involving a patent related to the challenged patent.

In its motion, the Patent Owner argued that the Garmin factors each strongly support granting the deposition. In particular, the Patent Owner argued that ” (Factor 1) there is credible, concrete evidence (more than a possibility and mere allegation) that the deposition of [the witness] will provide significant evidence regarding the non-obviousness of and teachings away from the invention in the [challenged] patent;” that (Factor 2) the deposition does not seek Petitioner’s litigation positions or their underlying basis;” that (Factor 3) the “Patent Owner has no ability to obtain information from [the witness] by other means;” that “(Factor 4) the deposition will follow common deposition protocols and easily understandable instructions;” and, that “(Factor 5) the deposition only requires production of [the witness] and is not overly burdensome.
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