On October 13, 2020, the Supreme Court granted petitions for certiorari filed by the United States (in No. 19-1434), Smith & Nephew, Inc. (in No. 19-1452), and Arthrex, Inc. (in No. 19-1458) regarding the appointments of the administrative patent judges of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  No date has been set to argue the cases, but the Court consolidated them and allotted one hour for argument time.  Because the Court consolidated the cases for briefing and oral argument, it noted that “future filings and activity in the cases will now be reflected on the docket of No. 19-1434.”  On December 31, 2020, the Court set oral argument for March 1, 2021.

The various petitions were granted only to the extent of “Questions 1 and 2 as set forth in the July 22, 2020 Memorandum for the United States.”  See Orders List at 2.

Question 1 asks “[w]hether, for purposes of the Appointments Clause, U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, Cl. 2, administrative patent judges of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are principal officers who must be appointed by the President with the Senate’s advice and consent, or ‘inferior Officers’ whose appointment Congress has permissibly vested in a department head.”

Question 2 asks “[w]hether, if administrative patent judges are principal officers, the court of appeals properly cured any Appointments Clause defect in the current statutory scheme prospectively by severing the application of 5 U.S.C. § 7513(a) to those judges.”

Links to the briefs, and details of the briefing schedule, are below. [Updated 1/8/2021, to reflect most current filings, and argument date] Continue Reading Supreme Court grants certiorari in PTAB Appointments Clause cases

On August 3, 2020, the Federal Circuit (Judges Lourie, Moore, and Reyna (dissenting)) (“the Court”) granted a petition for panel rehearing and issued a modified opinion (“Mod. Op.”) that maintained its prior patent-eligibility determination in Illumina, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc., Case No. 19-1419.  Specifically, the modified majority opinion again held that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,580,751 (the “’751 patent”) and 9,738,931 (the “’931 patent”), generally directed to methods of preparing cell-free fetal DNA from maternal blood for genetic analysis, are not invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to a natural phenomenon under the Alice/Mayo test, and are differentiated from other cases where the Court held claims ineligible. Continue Reading Method Claims Relying On A Naturally-Occurring Phenomenon Are Patent-Eligible Where They Recite “Human-Engineered Parameters”

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) recently designated two decisions as informative regarding discretionary denials of institution: Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc., Case IPR2020-00019, Paper 15 (May 13, 2020), and Sand Revolution II, LLC v. Continental Intermodal Group – Trucking LLC, Case IPR2019-01393, Paper 24 (June 16, 2020).  These decisions show how the Board applied the Fintiv factors established in its recent Precedential Order to determine whether co-pending district court litigation should result in a discretionary denial of institution under AIA 35 U.S.C. § 314(a). Continue Reading New PTAB Informative Decisions: Applying the Fintiv Factors in View of Parallel District Court Litigation

In Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Hulu, LLC, No. 2019-1686 (Fed. Cir. July 22, 2020), the Federal Circuit considered whether the AIA permits the PTAB to reject substitute claims proposed during an IPR for patent ineligibility under § 101. Continue Reading Federal Circuit confirms that the PTAB can consider the patent eligibility of substitute claims proposed during an IPR

On Thursday, June 11, 2020, the PTAB designated one decision as precedential and three decisions as informative, on issues including: 1) the statutory scope of confidential settlement agreements, 2) design patent ornamentality, 3) terminating a proceeding having a pending motion to amend, and 4) use of confidential information at a hearing. Continue Reading PTAB Issues Precedential Decision to Clarify 35 U.S.C. § 317(b) Collateral Agreements, and Three Informative Decisions

On May 26, 2020, the USPTO announced several proposed rule changes for IPR, PGR, and CBM proceedings. If implemented, the proposed rules would:

  • Eliminate the presumption in favor of petitioners at the institution stage. The Board began allowing patent owners to include testimonial evidence with their preliminary responses in 2016, but since then it has viewed any issues of fact created by such evidence “in the light most favorable to the petitioner solely for purposes of deciding whether to institute.” 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.108(c), 42.208(c). The new rules would eliminate that presumption.

Continue Reading USPTO announces proposed rule changes on presumptions at institution and briefing permitted for patent owners during trial, among others

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) recently designated Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc., IPR2020-00019, Paper 11 (March 20, 2020), as precedential.  The decision provides practitioners a six-factor analysis that the Board will employ when assessing whether to apply its discretion to deny institution when there is co-pending district court litigation.  Continue Reading PTAB Precedential Decision Offers Guidance on Discretionary Denials of Institution in Light of Co-Pending Litigations

In a previous post, we reported that the PTAB’s Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) tackled issue joinder in Proppant Express Investments v. Oren Techs.  IPR2018-00914, Paper 24 at 2.

As background, in Proppant, the POP addressed the following issues:

  1. Under 35 U.S.C. § 315(c) may a petitioner be joined to a proceeding in which it is already a party?
  2. Does 35 U.S.C. § 315(c) permit joinder of new issues into an existing proceeding?
  3. Does the existence of a time bar under § 315(b), or any other relevant facts, have any impact on the first two questions?

The POP determined that § 315(c) “provides discretion to allow a petitioner to be joined to a proceeding in which it is already a party and provides discretion to allow joinder of new issues into an existing proceeding.”  IPR2018-00914, Paper 38, at 4.

In Facebook, Inc., v. Windy City Innovations, LLC, the Federal Circuit reversed the POP opinion.  953 F.3d 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (the “Decision”).  Specifically, the court held that “[t]he clear and unambiguous text of § 315(c) does not authorize same-party joinder, and does not authorize the joinder of new issues.”  Decision at 1322.  Continue Reading Federal Circuit Reverses PTAB’s Precedential Opinion Panel on Aspects of Joinder

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) recently provided guidance to practitioners on its discretion to deny institution under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d) and § 314(a) by designating three decisions as informative or precedential.[1]  Under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d), the Board may deny institution of inter partes review (“IPR”) because “the same or substantially the same prior art or arguments previously were presented to the Office.” Advanced Bionics, LLC v. MED-EL Elektromedizinische Geräte GmbH, IPR2019-01469, Paper 6 (PTAB Feb. 13, 2020) (precedential), Oticon Med. AB v. Cochlear Ltd., IPR2019-00975, Paper 15 (PTAB Oct. 16, 2019) (precedential), and PUMA N. Am., Inc. v. NIKE, Inc., IPR2019-01042, Paper 10 (PTAB Oct. 31, 2019) (informative) all provide guidance related to § 325(d).  Under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), the Board may deny institution as an exercise of its discretion in certain circumstances, such as when parallel proceedings are underway.  In Oticon, the Board also addressed the parallel proceedings issue under § 314(a).

In Advanced Bionics, the Board denied institution under § 325(d), set forth a two-part framework for applying § 325(d), and explained how the factors from Becton, Dickinson & Co. v. B. Braun Melsungen AG, IPR2017-01586, Paper 8 (Dec. 15, 2017) (precedential as to § III.C.5, first paragraph) (“Becton, Dickinson”) fit into the two-part framework.

In Oticon, however, the Board refused to exercise its discretion under § 325(d) and instituted the proceeding over similar arguments by a patent owner. While it did not characterize the § 325(d) inquiry as a two-part analysis, and it grouped the Becton, Dickinson factors into three categories, the Board focused on the same two issues: (1) whether the same or substantially similar prior art and arguments were previously considered, and (2) whether the Patent Office erred in its prior assessment of the art. The Board also rejected a request to deny institution under § 314(a) and distinguished an earlier precedential ruling, NHK Spring Co. v. Intri-Plex Techs., Inc., IPR2018-00752, slip op. at 19–20 (PTAB Sept. 12, 2018) (Paper 8) (precedential) (“NHK”), in which institution was denied because of a parallel district court proceeding.

In PUMA, the Board denied institution under § 325(d) after analyzing the Becton, Dickinson factors and finding the same prior art was previously considered and the petitioner did not persuasively demonstrate the examiner materially erred in evaluating the prior art during prosecution.

This is a longer read, but worthwhile, given the importance of the issues.  As detailed in the following summaries, the rulings collectively show the fact-specific nature of the § 325(d) and § 314(a) inquiries. The Board will assess the prior-art teachings considered in prosecution and earlier Board proceedings, will compare those to the teachings asserted in the petition, will carefully compare the disclosures of supposedly duplicative prior art, and will assess the issues and progress of parallel district court cases. Litigants should be prepared for this level of scrutiny and establish the needed records on the prior art teachings and parallel district court cases. Continue Reading Recent Precedential and Informative Decisions Clarify Standard for Discretionary Denials of Institution

On April 7, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) designated one decision as precedential and four decisions as informative, all relating to the topic of prior-art status.  Overall, the precedential decision clarifies the different standards for establishing a reference as a printed publication in IPRs versus patent examination, and the informative decisions provide examples of factual scenarios meeting and failing to meet the “threshold showing” for printed-publication status at the IPR institution stage.  A summary of each decision is below. Continue Reading The Threshold Showing Of Prior Art Status: PTAB’s New Precedential and Informative Decisions