Scott McKeown

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Claim Changes in Patent Reexamination & Reexamination Certificates

When faced with the assertion of a patent of dubious validity, prospective defendants increasingly resort to patent reexamination as a cost effective mechanism to dissolve the dispute.

In many patent disputes, patent reexamination is conducted in parallel to a district court or ITC proceeding. Of course, as the reexamination proceeding advances, the reexamination prosecution history creates new defensive opportunities such as, additional prosecution history disclaimer and/or estoppel arguments; enhanced, or additional  inequitable conduct positions; and new non-infringement arguments.

Claim changes and/or cancellation are a boon to defendants as potentially mooting current infringement contentions or at least creating an intervening rights defense.  Yet, it is important to keep in mind that such claim changes are not effective until the proceeding is concluded.
Continue Reading When is a Claim Finally Dead in Patent Reexamination?

Race to Secure Venue Could Shut Out USPTO

When there is an imminent threat of litigation, rather than await the inevitable lawsuit, a potential defendant may pursue a declaratory judgement to establish a lack of liability. In patent disputes, declaratory judgment of invalidity and/or non-infringement were traditionally sought to remove the specter of litigation from a prospective defendant’s business. Increasingly, however, declaratory judgement actions are filed to secure a more desirable venue in advance of a litigious competitor, or dreaded “patent troll.” For example, rather than await being added to the Lodsys dispute in the notoriously Patentee friendly Eastern District of Texas, Wolfram Research, The New York Times, and Foresee Results Inc all sought declaratory judgement of invalidity of the Lodsys patents in different federal district courts, namely, Wisconsin, Illinois and California.

For those prospective defendants seeking to utilize a DJ action to secure venue after the enactment of the America Invents Act, doing so will foreclose a later filed inter partes challenge (i.e., Inter Partes Review or Post Grant Review) at the USPTO.  …
Continue Reading Declaratory Judgement Less Attractive After Patent Reform?

Patent Reform & Inter Partes Review

Last week, I discussed some important changes to inter partes patent reexamination that will become effective immediately upon enactment of the patent reform legislation. Namely, that the standard for initiating inter partes reexamination will become stricter. The new standard is defined as: a reasonable likelihood that the requester would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the request. This new standard replaces the current standard that requires a Substantial New Question of Patentability (SNQ), perhaps within a matter of days.

Inter Partes Review will ultimately replace inter partes patent reexamination on the one year anniversary of the enactment of the patent reform legislation. Thus, the interim standard for the last year of inter partes patent reexamination will help the USPTO prepare to transition to the new Inter Partes Review proceeding, which will use the same standard.

Looking forward to Inter Partes Review, current litigation defendants will find themselves shut out from the USPTO with respect to a parallel inter partes proceeding unless they pursue matters before the one year anniversary.

…
Continue Reading Unwary Litigants to Lose USPTO Review Option Under Patent Reform

2011 AIPLA Economic Survey

 The cost of legal services will vary, depending upon the expertise of the attorney, market rates in a given area, and the unique aspects of a given project. In an attempt to provide a rough gauge on the expected costs in a given market and law firm size, the American Intellectual…

USPTO Updates Patent Reissue Practice to be Consistent with In re Tanaka

The USPTO has now issued a Notice entitled “Clarification of Criteria for Reissue Error in View of In re Tanaka.”

As a reminder, Ex parte Tanaka was decided in December of 2009 by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI). In their decision, the Board explained that a reissue application was improper where the only defect identified in an issued patent was the failure to present additional dependent claims.  The Board reasoned that the mere addition of new dependent claims did not identify any defect in the issued patent. The Board rejected the reasoning of In re Handel, which indicated that a failure to pursue dependent claims was an appropriate error in patent reissue. The Board characterized this reasoning as “dicta.”

The Board’s decision was reversed by the CAFC (In re Tanaka here). In their reversal, the CAFC explained that contrary to the Board’s position, the In re Handel dicta is consistent with the patent reissue statute, and the court has not departed from this line of reasoning over the years.

In order to account for the decision of the CAFC, the USPTO Notice provides:…

Continue Reading USPTO Changes Patent Reissue Practice

Enactment of America Invents Act to Change Inter Partes Patent Reexamination Practice Immediately

The USPTO is currently hard at work preparing to implement and adapt agency practices to comport with the various provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. As many features of the legislation will require a significant USPTO rule making effort, most of the provisions of the Act will not become effective until the 1 year anniversary of enactment. In this regard, the USPTO has reportedly penciled in September 20th as the target date for the expected enactment of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.

While most provisions of the Act will not take effect until a year after enactment, there are some very important changes to patent reexamination practice that will become effective immediately…..likely, in a few weeks time.…

Continue Reading Inter Partes Patent Reexamination Standard to Tighten in 30 Days

ABA Accepting Best Blog Nominations

Yes, you have seen this post before.

I tend to take it easy on Fridays (at least in the summer when readership falls off by week’s end anyway), just another groveling solicitation reminder to vote!

The American Bar Association (ABA) is now accepting nominations for the 100 best legal blogs.

Parallel Patent Reexamination Qualifies as Newly Discovered Evidence Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)

It is well established that the USPTO utilizes different standards of evidence and claim interpretation in patent reexamination. Likewise, there is no presumption of validity in patent reexamination. For this reason, district court/ITC claim construction findings (i.e., Markman Orders) are not binding on the USPTO. In re Trans Texas Holdings Corp., 498 F.3d 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Yet, the findings of the USPTO with regard to claim construction can have significant impact on the court rulings.

For example, this past January, in St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, Inc. v. Canon Inc., (Fed. Cir. 2011, non-precedential), the CAFC reversed a lower court claim construction ruling, based in part, on the findings of USPTO examiners in patent reexamination,…

Continue Reading Can a Favorable Patent Reexamination Record Undo a Markman Order?

Inter Partes Patent Reexamination is Not Always the Best Choice

In the case of Inventio AG v. Otis Elevator Co. (SDNY), the Court found that entry of a permanent injunction was against public interest where a pending ex parte patent reexamination of the USPTO seemingly demonstrated the potential invalidity of the subject patent. Interestingly, this type of strategic, post-trial benefit of a concurrent patent reexamination is not available if the parallel patent reexamination were an inter partes patent reexamination.

That is to say, in considering the choice between ex parte and/or inter partes patent reexamination, post trial, or late stage litigation strategies must take into account the unique estoppel provisions of inter partes patent reexamination.
Continue Reading Limited Patent Reexamination Choices for Late Stage Litigants

Inter Partes Patent Reexamination Filings Pose Challenge to Lodsys

Late Friday, Google announced that it had filed inter partes patent reexamination requests against two of the now infamous Lodsys patents, 7,222,078, and 7,620,565. Over the past few months, Lodsys has been contacting iOS and Android application developers seeking license fees, and has begun suing others to enforce their patent rights (the patents are purportedly directed to application transactions among providers and users). An infringement suit was filed against 11 defendants in Texas, including EA, Take-Two Interactive, Atari and Rovio (of Angry Birds fame).

As a licensee, Apple has attempted to intervene in the ongoing litigation arguing that app developers are covered under the terms of their license. Google, perhaps unencumbered by the contractual obligations of Apple with respect to challenging validity, has opened up a new battle front for Lodsys at the the USPTO.

As ed.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/google-android-lodsys-patent/”>explained this past Saturday at Wired.com, Google announced the filing stating that:

We’ve asked the US Patent Office to reexamine two Lodsys patents that we believe should never have been issued. . …Developers play a critical part in the Android ecosystem and Google will continue to support them. [quote attributed to Google Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Kent Walker]

So, now what?…

Continue Reading Google Takes on Lodsys Patents at USPTO