Earlier this year the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial in Sling TV, L.L.C. et al. v. Realtime Adaptive Streaming, LLC, IPR2018-01331, Paper 9 (PTAB January 31, 2019). In doing so it created a new exception to the 315(b) time bar. The
Last summer, the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s (PTAB) practice of accepting IPR petitions as timely filed under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) where a complaint for infringement was served outside of the one-year window, but dismissed without prejudice. Click-to-Call v. Ingenio In its reversal, the Court reasoned that “the appropriate question is whether the voluntary, without prejudice dismissal of a civil action in which a complaint had been served nullifies an administrative time bar that is triggered by service of that complaint. It does not.” As a result, IPR proceedings before the Board that had been instituted under that previous 315(b) exception have been terminated.
Since Click-to-Call, the question has been raised whether the 315(b) bar is triggered by a complaint for infringement of a patent where there is a question as to the ultimate patent owner, which causes the suit to be dismissed without prejudice and re-filed.
I don’t expect the Federal Circuit’s answer to be any different.
Continue Reading PTAB Identifies New Exception to One-Year Time Bar