The Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB” or “the Board”) ruling that invalidated three patents in three separate IPR proceedings (IPR2015-00325, IPR2015-00326, and IPR2015-00330). The patent owner, ATI Technologies, asserted that the inventions in the challenged claims antedated the asserted prior art. That is, ATI attempted to swear behind the asserted
Assessing the Meaning of a Publicly Available “Printed Publication” in View of Acceleration Bay v. Activision Blizzard
When a non-patent literature (NPL) reference is used to challenge a patent, a key issue to be resolved is whether the NPL reference is a “printed publication” under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Several prior posts have addressed this question, such as here and here.
The Federal Circuit recently, on November 6, weighed in yet
Using Theses as Prior Art at the PTAB
Based on recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB” or “the Board”) decisions, the best practice to establish an academic thesis as a printed publication in an IPR proceeding is to demonstrate that it has been indexed by subject matter and then corroborate the index date by independent evidence, or demonstrate that another publication can
Non-Patent Literature at the PTAB
Typically, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) is thought to disfavor non-patent literature—that is, “printed publications” under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) that are not patents, patent publications, or patent applications.
To the extent that this is true, it most likely stems from the fact that members of the PTAB are, by training, used to
Updating PTAB Strategies post-SAS Institute
Following the SAS Institute decision by the Supreme Court (which we covered in a separate post on the PTAB Law blog), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) must now address every challenged claim in a trial if a trial is instituted as to any one claim. The PTO has further decided that it will
PTAB Finds that Tribal Sovereign Immunity Does Not Apply to Review Proceedings
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the PTAB”) ruled last Friday, February 23, 2018, that tribal sovereign immunity does not apply to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. The issue has been percolating for months. For more background on the issue, see these previous blog articles – Tribal Sovereign Immunity: The New Defense Against IPRs? and
Discretion and Precedential Decisions at the PTAB
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) enjoys a wide range of discretion on a number of issues. For instance, the PTAB has interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 314(a) as providing the Director with the discretion to institute or not, regardless of whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner will prevail on at least
Effect of Recent Federal Circuit Decisions on CBM Filings, Institution Rate
The Federal Circuit recently changed the scope of CBM eligible patents. While the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) had previously interpreted its jurisdiction broadly, the Federal Circuit, in two recent decisions, considerably narrowed the universe of patents eligible for CBM review. This post analyzes the results of those decisions as they have played out
Review of PTAB’s Partial Institution Practice Further Clouds Scope of Estoppel
On May 22, 2017, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in SAS Institute, Inc. v. Lee, No. 16-969, 2017 WL 468440 (U.S. May 22, 2017). The issue in this appeal is whether the America Invents Act permits the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) to partially institute IPR proceedings (as it has been doing).
How Many References Is Too Many for Challenging a Patent on Obviousness?
The PTAB does not appear to have weighed in, one way or another, on the question of how many references is too many for an obviousness challenge under 35 U.S.C. § 103—at least not explicitly. Implicitly, the PTAB has regularly instituted inter partes review of patents where four or more references have been used to