USPTO Adjusts Fees for PTAB IPR Proceedings
By Matt Johnson On November 14th, the USPTO issued a final rule setting and adjusting patent fees during fiscal year 2017. The new fees, set to take effect January 16, 2018, include upward adjustments of fees for requesting Inter Partes Review (IPR) and...
District Courts Split on Admissibility of Patent Owner IPR Victories
By Jeff Giering, Ph.D. and Carl Kukkonen In an opinion dated October 12, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin granted a motion in limine to exclude evidence that a challenged patent had survived twenty post-issuance proceedings,...
PTAB Designates Three Informative Opinions Which Address 35 U.S.C. § 325(d)
On October 24th, the PTAB issued the following notice, designating the following decisions, which address 35 U.S.C. § 325(d), as informative. Unified Patents, Inc. v. Berman, Case IPR2016-01571 (PTAB Dec. 14, 2016) (Paper 10) In this decision, the Board denied...
PTAB Sheds Light on Role of Prior Art in Discretionary Denial
by Seth M. Bostrom and Joseph M. Sauer The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) recently designated as informative three cases involving discretionary denial of inter partes review under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d). We previously profiled the case of Hospira, Inc. v....
Petitioners Must Explain Combining Multiple Embodiments of Reference in Obviousness Argument
By Geoffrey Gavin In a series of recent decisions, the PTAB denied institution on a dozen petitions on related patents because of one problem it identified in the petitioner’s arguments. All of the petitioner’s proposed grounds challenged the patents under § 103, and...