No Soup for You! Partial Display Design Patent Found Obvious
By Kerry Barrett and John Evans - As with utility patents, a patentee can counter obviousness of a patented design by producing objective evidence that the design was non-obvious, like commercial success, copying, etc. But to be persuasive, a nexus must exist between...
PGR Eligibility: An Uphill Climb For Transition Patents
By Sue Gerber and Matt Johnson - A patent is eligible for post-grant review (“PGR”) only if the patent is subject to the first-inventor-to-file provisions of the AIA. In Tricam Indus., Inc. v. Little Giant Ladder Sys., LLC, the PTAB explained that determining whether...
PTAB Bar Association Launches Portal for Precedential Decision Nomination
The PTAB’s Standard Operating Procedure 2 permits the public to submit nominations for PTAB decisions that an individual believes should be designated as precedential or informative, or to suggest that a decision previously designated as precedential or informative...
PGR Ineligible – Petitioner Failed to Show Post-AIA Priority
By Hannah Mehrle and Matt Johnson - Ocado Group (“Petitioner”) filed a petition requesting a post-grant review of a claim from U.S. Patent No. 10,696,478 (’478 Patent) owned by AutoStore Technology (“Patent Owner”). The Board concluded that the Petitioner did not...
PTAB Denies Patent Owner’s Last-Minute Discovery Request
By Carl Kukkonen - In Unified Patents, LLC f/k/a Unified Patents Inc. v. Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (IPR2021-00827), the PTAB denied a patent owner's request to file a motion for additional discovery into any real parties-in-interest. Here,...