Observations: Five Months After Supreme Court SAS Institute
By David Anderson and Joe Sauer As an update to the May 15, 2018 post, available here, some post-SAS trends appear to be taking shape. For the five-month period from May 2018 through September 2018, the PTAB issued 538 institution decisions. Of these, the PTAB...
Misbehavior In IPR Can Form Basis For Inequitable Conduct
By Tim Heverin Finjan, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., Case No. 17-cv-00072-BLF (N.D. Cal. Sept. 13, 2018), reminds us that representations to the PTAB can have consequences in district court litigation, even outside the estoppel context. In the patent infringement...
Speculation Insufficient To Justify Routine Discovery
By Sue Gerber and Matt Johnson The PTAB has discretion to permit “routine discovery” under 37 C.F.R. §42.51(b)(1)(iii) when that discovery “is narrowly directed to specific information known to the responding party to be inconsistent with a position advanced by that...
Indefiniteness Again Leads To Unsuccessful IPR Challenge
By T. Kaitlin Crowder, John Marlott, and Dave Cochran The PTAB may institute IPR proceedings only on the basis of certain prior art that is potentially invalidating under § 102 (novelty) or § 103 (obviousness). The PTAB may not institute IPR on any other...
Board Terminates Motion to Amend, Citing Inefficient Use of Resources
By Albert Liou The Board recently exercised its discretion to terminate trial and obviate the Patent Owner’s pending Motion to Amend, after the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that all of the challenged claims were invalid for lack of patentable...