Wave Goodbye to Waiver: Rehearing Petitions Rejected in Polaris
By Nate Andrews and Matt Johnson - The full Federal Circuit denied rehearing in Polaris. Polaris Innovations Ltd. v. Kingston Technology Company, No. 2018-1831. As previously discussed, both the U.S. government and Polaris requested rehearing after the court applied...
PTAB Oral Argument Procedures in view of COVID-19
By Matt Johnson - On March 13th, the PTAB issued the following notice: Until further notice, examiner and examining attorney interviews, Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) oral hearings, and other similar in-person...
Don’t Wait Too Late to Assert the § 315(b) Time-Bar
By Cathy Chin Eng and Matt Johnson - In two related decisions, the Federal Circuit held that the Patent Owner, Acoustic Technology, Inc. (“Acoustic”) waived its time-bar challenges under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) (“Section 315(b)”) by failing to assert them in the IPR...
PTAB Bar Association Postpones Annual Conference
On Monday, the PTAB Bar Association postponed its 2020 annual conference scheduled for this week, stating: The PTAB Bar Association has made the difficult decision to postpone this week’s conference in light of the increasing spread of COVID-19 and the uncertainty...
Return to Sender: PTAB Denies Government Contractor IPRs
By Albert Liou and Chris Buxton - After the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 139 S. Ct. 1853 (2019), held that federal agencies are not “persons” eligible to challenge a patent at the PTAB, the government was recently...