Articles Posted in Inter Partes Review

In IPR2014-00739 involving petitioner Shire Development LLC and patent owner LCS Group, LLC, the petitioner sought authorization to file a motion for sanctions against the inventor based on his communications with petitioner in violation of a prior order from the Board. The Board’s prior order stated that “the inventor, Dr. Louis Sanfilippo, is prohibited from contacting Shire, Shire’s employees, the expert retained by Shire for this proceeding (Dr. Timothy Brewerton), and counsel for Petitioner, except through counsel for Patent Owner or in the presence of counsel for Patent Owner.” Paper 9. According to the Petitioner, “the [inventor’s] e-mail, as well as the hyperlink contained within the e-mail, contained misrepresentations, and constituted harassment, as well as veiled threats against Petitioner.”

The Petitioner also sought an adverse judgment based on a statement in the e-mail that “Patent Owner has determined that in order to best protect its interests it is foregoing any further involvement in the IPR process so that it can take the appropriate actions, including legal remedies, to resolve such representations made to the Board that have now caused Patent Owner harm, and so that it can pre-empt further harm from the undue burden of such representations.”
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In a covered business method review filed by petitioner GTNX, Inc., the petitioner sought review of four patents owned by patent owner INTTRA, Inc. The PTAB instituted trial on all four patents following the patent owner’s preliminary response. Notably, in its preliminary response the patent owner did not raise that the reviews were barred under 35 U.S.C. § 325(a)(1) based on petitioner’s prior invalidity challenge of the patents in a declaratory judgment action before a United States District Court. After the parties briefed the issue to the Board, the Board vacated its Decisions on Institution and terminated the CBMs based on the petitioner’s prior declaratory judgment action.

In its precedential SecureBuy decision, the Board noted that “§ 18 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, Pub. L. No. 112-29, 125 Stat. 284, 329-31 (2011) (“AIA”) “provides that covered business method patent review proceedings shall employ all the statutory standards and procedures of a post-grant review (i.e., 35 U.S.C. §§ 321-29), except for those expressly excluded.” 35 U.S.C. § 325(a)(1), which is not expressly excluded by § 18 of the AIA, states:

(1) POST-GRANT REVIEW BARRED BY CIVIL ACTION.–A post-grant review may not be instituted under this chapter if, before the date on which the petition for such a review is filed, the petitioner or real party in interest filed a civil action challenging the validity of a claim of the patent.

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In an IPR petition filed by petitioner Salesforce.com, the petitioner sought review of patent owner, VirtualAgility, Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 8,095,413. The PTAB instituted trial on November 19, 2013, the Patent Owner filed its Patent Owner Response on January 28, 2014, the Petitioner then filed its Reply on April 11, 2014, oral argument was held on July 14, 2014, and a Final Written Decision was rendered on September 16, 2014. In the Final Written Decision, the Boart held that Petitioner has proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1-21 of the ‘413 patent are unpatentable.

As a result, on November 18, 2014, the Patent Owner filed a Notice of Appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. At the same time, the parties filed a Joint Motion to File Settlement Agreement as Confidential Business Information. Subsequently, on November 21, 2014, the Patent Owner requested authorization to file a motion to vacate the Final Written Decision and to terminate the proceeding after the Final Written Decision was vacated. After hearing from the Patent Owner, the Board denied its request.
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Reflectix, Inc., Innovative Insulation, Inc., TVM Building Products, Inc., Energy Efficient Solutions, LLC, and Home Depot U.S.A., Inc.’s (collectively, “Defendants”) filed a motion to stay pending and Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) that was filed with the Patent Trials and Appeals Board (“PTAB”). The plaintiff opposed the motion to stay on the grounds that the IPR had not yet been granted for review by the PTAB.

In analyzing the motion to say, the district court noted that “it has the inherent power to control its own docket, including the power to stay proceedings. See Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 (1997) (‘The District Court has broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to control its own docket.’). How to best manage the court’s docket ‘calls for the exercise of judgment, which must weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance.’ Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254-55 (1936).”
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In an IPR petition filed by petitioner Shire Development LLC, the petitioner sought review of patent owner, LCS Group, LLC’s U.S. Patent No. 8,318,813. In its mandatory statement, the patent owner timely designated outside counsel to represent it in the IPR proceeding. Subsequently, the designated counsel for the patent owner sought authorization to withdraw from representation. According to the patent owner’s counsel, the inventor desired to represent himself in the proceeding.

The Board denied the request of the patent owner’s counsel on the grounds that the patent-at-issue is assigned to a juristic entity, i.e., a legal entity that is not a natural person, LCS Group, LLC, which also is designated as the real party-in-interest. Under 37 C.F.R. § 1.31 (2012), because the real party-in-interest in this proceeding is a corporation, a juristic entity, it can only appear through counsel.
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In an IPR petition filed by petitioner C&D Zodiac, Inc., the petitioner sought review of patent owner, B/E Aerospace, Inc.’s U.S. Patent No. 8,590,838, directed to space-saving aircraft enclosures, including lavatories, closets, and galleys. The petition challenged the validity of claims under Section 102 and 103 based on, among other things, a publication entitled McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Customer Configuration Summary (Oct. 1978) referred to as an “Orange Book,” presumably because of its orange cover.

The Board granted the petition based on multiple grounds, including the obviousness of the claims in view of a prior art patent to Betts and the Orange Book. Critical to the Board’s holding was its determination that the Orange Book satisfied the printed publication requirement for prior art purposes.
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In a CBM petition filed by petitioners PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Bancorp, the petitioners sought review of U.S. Patent No. 7,631,191, which claims a method of authenticating a web page. The petition challenged the validity of claims under Section 101, 103 and 112.

After finding that the ‘191 patent was a covered business method patent, the Board turned to the challenge under Section 101. Reciting the well-known categories of patentable subject matter under Section 101, including “process, machine, method of manufacture, or composition of matter,” the Board further explained that “[t]here are, however, three limited, judicially-created exceptions to the broad categories of patent-eligible subject in § 101: laws of nature; natural phenomena; and abstract ideas. Mayo Collaborative Servs. V. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293 (2012).” Citing Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218, 3222, the Board explained that this test for patent-eligible under § 101 is “not amenable to bright-line categorical rules.”
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In IPR proceeding involving Medtronic, Inc. v. NuVasive. Inc., the petitioner, Medtronic, file a petition seeking review of U.S. Patent No. 8,361,156 relating to a spinal implant and methods of spinal fusion using the implant. The petition was Medtronic’s third IPR petition challenging the validity of claims in the ‘156 patent. One of the two earlier petitions was granted while the other was denied. According to Medtronic, the instant petition “remedies the deficiencies of the [earlier denied] petition, and also adds new arguments and evidence as to the length disclosure of [prior art publication to Frey].”

In its preliminary response, the patent owner argued that the petition “is essentially a duplicate of its previously denied petition.” As summarized below, the Board agreed with the patent owner and denied Medtronic’s third challenge to the validity of claims of the ‘156 patent based on “the same or substantially the same prior art or arguments” presented in the earlier, denied petition.
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In IPR proceeding First Data Corporation v. Cardsoft (Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors), LLC, the petitioner, First Data Corporation, attempted to file a petition on April 30, 2014 seeking review of U.S. Patent No. 6,934,945 assigned to Cardsoft (Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors), LLC. On May 20, 2014, the petitioner filed a corrected petition to address certain formatting issues, but, in doing so, also served the petition on the patent owner of record at the address listed in the USPTO PAIR records rather than the patent owner’s corporate address, the address where the original petition was served. On August 7, 2014, the patent owner filed its preliminary response, raising the defense that the petition was time barred under Section 315(b) because the real party in interest, VeriFone, was served with a complaint more than one year before the May 20, 2014 filing of the petition.

In 2008, the patent owner has sued VeriFone alleging infringement of the ‘945 patent. On June 8, 2012, a jury determined that VeriFone infringed the ‘945 patent and that the patent was valid. That decision was appealed to the Federal Circuit.
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