Five-Judge PTAB Panel Interprets “Module” As Non Means-Plus Function
By Carl Kukkonen and Amanda Leckman On September 13, 2017, the PTAB, a five-judge panel, granted a petition to institute an inter partes review brought by HTC America, Inc. (“Petitioner”) against Virginia Innovation Sciences, Inc. (“Patent Owner”) regarding U.S....
PTAB Grants Rare Rehearing Due To Insufficient Evidence Of Obviousness
By J. Jason Williams and J. Patrick Elsevier, Ph.D. In Coalition For Affordable Drugs VI, LLC v. Celgene Corp. (2015-01096, -01102, -01103),[1] the PTAB granted Patent Owner Celgene’s request for rehearing of a final written decision that had found the challenged...
Record Petition Filings Projected for FY 2017 – Institution Rate Continues Slide
By Matt Johnson The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has released AIA trial filing and disposition numbers for July 2017. Filings remain near the 150 mark, with 138 total trials being requested in July, 135 of those being requests for Inter Partes Review. This is down...
PTAB Denies Untimely Request to Stay Pending Reexaminations
By Geoffrey Gavin In Juniper Networks, Inc. v. Chrimar Systems, Inc., IPR2016-01389, Paper 62 (PTAB Sept. 12, 2017), the PTAB denied Petitioner’s request to stay two reexaminations of patents that were also the subject of pending IPR proceedings. In a pair of IPR...
Secondary Considerations Win Again
By Allie Terry and Dave Maiorana As we have previously discussed (on February 1, March 1, March 30, and May 19), reliance on secondary considerations of non-obviousness has been hit or miss for patent owners trying to convince PTAB panels that the secondary...