Federal Agencies May Not Challenge Patents in AIA Post-Issuance Proceedings
By Greg Castanias, Dave Cochran, Jennifer Swize, and Jihong Lou The Supreme Court ruled in Return Mail that a federal agency is not a "person" who may challenge an issued patent in inter partes review, post-grant review, or CBM review under the AIA. In its 6–3...
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PTAB Rejects “Real Party in Interest” Challenge to Apple’s Inter Partes Review Petition
By Emily Tait - The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently issued a Final Written Decision in Apple Inc. v. Uniloc Luxembourg, S.A., Case IPR2018-00282 (June 4, 2019) (Paper 30), rejecting Uniloc’s argument that Unified Patents (“Unified”) is a real party in...
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No Basis For Broad Exclusion Of Inventor Testimony
By Kenny Luchesi The Board has broad discretion to determine how much weight should be given to inventor testimony, but as long as the testimony does not relate to the inventor’s opinion about the meaning of a claim term, there is no basis for broadly excluding all...
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Collateral Estoppel Requires Same Grounds, Says PTAB
By Albert Liou The PTAB’s recent decision in TicketNetwork, Inc. v. CEATS, Inc. reminds litigants that collateral estoppel only applies when there is an identity of issues. In the decision, the PTAB refused to find that a claim limitation was disclosed by a prior art...
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PTAB Finds Some Pipeline Patent Claims Patentable, Others Amendable
By Levent Herguner and Matt Johnson In a rare successful motion to amend, the PTAB found certain claims of a pipeline monitoring system patentable, and allowed substitution of amended claims for others deemed unpatentable. See Syrinix Inc. v. Blacoh Fluid Control...
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