Update: Overruled in part by Aqua Products, Inc. v. Matal.
In Nike, Inc. v. Adidas AG, Case No. 2014-1719 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 11, 2016) (appeal of IPR2013-00067), the Federal Circuit provided further guidance on the PTAB’s administrative procedures regarding motions to amend claims. After considering Nike’s argument that 35 U.S.C. § 316(e) places the burden of proving unpatentability on the petitioner in an IPR, the court reaffirmed its decision in Microsoft v. Proxyconn that the Patent Office has appropriately placed the burden on the patent owner to show patentability of substitute claims.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Provides Further Guidance on Administrative Procedures For Motions to Amend Claims
Six days after issuing a final decision holding the claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,711,100 unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in a first CBM review, 
In its seventh PGR institution, the PTAB recently decided for the first time that a patent asserting a pre-AIA effective filing date was eligible for post-grant review because it contained at least one claim that was only entitled to a post-AIA effective filing date. Although some claims were entitled to a pre-AIA effective filing date, PGR was instituted for all of the patent claims, on all five of the prior art grounds asserted by the petitioner. 
If you’re a patent owner faced with an expert declaration submitted by an IPR petitioner on reply, try to respond, and in multiple ways. Don’t just complain that the declaration should be excluded. This was the Federal Circuit’s recent message in 
Two recent PTAB final written decisions highlight the benefits that the “broadest reasonable interpretation” standard for claim construction provides to Petitioners, as well as the difficulty Petitioners face in proving inherent anticipation. The PTAB instituted two IPRs on the same patent: one on an anticipation ground, and another on an obviousness ground. The Petitioner failed to prove anticipation, but prevailed on obviousness of all claims of the patent.
The Board’s decisions instituting inter partes review on several grounds in two petitions filed by Deere & Company provide guidance on possible ways to organize an IPR petition and identify grounds for review. Deere filed two petitions (IPR2015-00898 and -00899) against U.S. Patent No. 6,202,395 (Gramm) asserting parallel challenges based on slightly different groupings of prior art. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board instituted trial on both, offering four observations that may be helpful when preparing an IPR petition.
The PTAB recently granted Celltrion’s motion to dismiss its IPRs without prejudice, after Celltrion suddenly lost its ability to rely on a key expert declaration. Celltrion had filed IPR petitions against two patents covering use of Rituxan®, and had sought joinder with pending IPRs filed by Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) against the same patents. Although Celltrion initially had permission to rely on testimony of BI’s expert, that permission was withdrawn after BI unilaterally requested adverse judgment in its IPRs. Left out in the cold, Celltrion requested dismissal without prejudice, to permit it to re-file its petitions with a new expert. The PTAB granted the request.