Precedential Decisions

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) maintains a list of all PTAB precedential and informative decisions organized by subject matter.[1] These precedential decisions establish “binding authority concerning major policy or procedural issues, or other issues of exceptional importance, including constitutional questions, important issues regarding statutes, rules, and regulations, important issues regarding case

Earlier this month, in the precedential decision  New Vision Gaming & Development, Inc. v. SG Gaming, Inc., FKA Bally Gaming, Inc., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“the CAFC”) vacated and remanded a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) on the ground that the decision issued after the

Earlier this month, in the precedential decision Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Facebook Inc., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“the CAFC”) upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) on the issue of estoppel (or lack thereof) when multiple parties file multiple, substantially similar petitions challenging a patent’s patentability.

1) The

In 2017, Cytonome filed suit in the Western District of Wisconsin (“the District Court”), accusing ABS of infringing six of its patents, including US Patent No. 8,529,161 (“the ’161 patent”). Subsequently, in October 2017, ABS filed for inter partes review (“IPR”) of the ’161 patent, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) issued

In 2017, Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) filed two petitions requesting inter parties review (“IPR”) of U.S. Patent No. 9,083,997 (“the ’997 patent”), with the first petition directed to claims 1-19 and the second petition directed to claims 20-35. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) issued two substantially similar Final Written Decisions (IPR2017-00829, IPR2017-00830) that

Faced with criticism from legislators and patent owners for perceived serial harassment by patent challengers, on May 7, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the PTAB” or “the Board”) designated two decisions as “precedential” that arguably expand its discretion to deny petitions in PTAB proceedings.

Previously, in General Plastic Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Canon

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