On April 18, 2019, in Dodocase VR, Inc. v. MerchSource, LLC, No. 2018-1724 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 18, 2019) (nonprecedential), the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court for the Northern District of California, agreeing that Dodocase VR, Inc. (“Dodocase”) is entitled to a preliminary injunction against MerchSource, LLC (“MerchSource”). The preliminary injunction requires that MerchSource
Federal Circuit
Presence of Harm Central to Real Party-in-Interest Issues in PTAB Precedential Decisions
On April 16, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the PTAB” or “the Board”) designated three orders as precedential related to the issue of the incomplete disclosure of “real parties-in-interest” (“RPIs”) at the time of the filing of petitions for post-grant proceedings. These three relatively recent orders—all issued since January 2019—present a range of…
Precedential Decision on Diligence: ATI Technologies ULC v. Iancu
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…
Why the Disconnect? Federal Circuit Reverses Yet Another Inherent Obviousness Decision
On March 8, 2019, in Personal Web Technologies, LLC v. Apple, Inc., No. 2018-1599 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 8, 2019) the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial and Appeals Board’s (the “Board” or “the PTAB”) cancellation of U.S. Patent No. 7,802,310 (“the ’310 patent”) based on inherent obviousness in an inter partes review (“IPR”). Another…
IPR Petitioner “Lost” Standing to Appeal to Federal Circuit By Abandoning Development of Proposed Biosimilar Before Appeal Was Completed
On February 7, 2019, the Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal because the IPR petitioner, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, essentially “lost” its constitutional standing when – prior to completing its appeal to the Federal Circuit – it abandoned development of its proposed biosimilar after failed Phase 1 clinical trials. Momenta Pharm., Inc. v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., No.…
Business as Usual for the USPTO and Federal Circuit Under the Partial Government Shutdown, At Least for Now
The United States government is currently in a partial shutdown due to a lapse in appropriated funding for a portion of the federal government. The partial shutdown began on December 22, 2018, and is currently in its fifth week. Two government organizations affected by the shutdown are (i) the Department of Commerce, which includes the…
The PTAB Rejects a “Benefits-Plus-Relationship” Standard For Determining Real Parties-in-Interest
The PTAB, on November 27, 2018, released the public version of Unified Patents, Inc. v. Realtime Adaptive Streaming, LLC, IPR2018-00883, Paper 29 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 11, 2018), finding membership in petitioner’s company plus only an interest in the outcome of the IPR fails to satisfy the AIT analysis for a real party-in-interest (“RPI”).
Realtime…
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…
Implications of PTAB’s Transition to the Phillips standard for Claim Construction
The PTAB will soon implement a change in its claim construction standard in post-issuance reviews, moving from the broadest reasonable interpretation (“BRI”) standard to the standard articulated in the Federal Circuit’s opinion, Phillips v. AWH Corp.[1] We previously covered this on our blog here. The effects of the change may be significant in…
Another Graphical User Interface Patent Survives 101 Patent-Eligibility Challenge in Data Engine Technologies
In its recent decision Data Engine Technologies LLC v. Google LLC, No. 17-1135 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 9, 2018), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part and reversed-in-part the district court’s ruling on Google’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c) Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings that all asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos.…