The PTAB denied institution of inter partes review (IPR) for a patent directed to geothermal technology. Fervo Energy Co. v. Ormat Techs. Inc., IPR2014-00665, Paper 18 (PTAB Sept. 18, 2024). The claimed invention related to...more
On October 25, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ordered Comcast Corporation (“Comcast”) to identify the date on which it learned of each patent, patent application, and printed...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in an inter partes review: Keysight Technologies, Inc. and Palo Alto Networks, Inc. v. Centripetal Networks, LLC found a rule set file used by a network security program to be a...more
In a recent decision, the PTAB determined that images of products offered for sale via online retailers, such as Amazon, did not alone qualify as printed publications—even if the images showed the product and the date it was...more
Suppose you have an invention and disclose it in a slide show to an audience attending a conference. Can this slide show be considered a printed publication to prevent the invention from being novel and patented? Are there...more
Through our work with independent schools, we have seen numerous schools grapple with a variety of copyright issues including disputes over ownership of work created by teachers, unauthorized use of music or videos, and the...more
In denying inter partes review in OBM, Inc. & Cholla Energy LLC v. Lancium LLC, the PTAB again made clear that “technical availability” of a reference is not enough to establish it is a printed publication. Here, the PTAB...more
Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed one and vacated another Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) final written decision in which the PTAB determined that Weber Inc. (“Weber”) failed to...more
In Weber, Inc. v. Provisur Techs., Inc., Nos. 2022-1751, 2022-1813 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 8, 2024), the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s legal conclusion that Weber’s operating manuals were not prior art...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s non-obviousness determination, finding that the Board erred in determining that an operating manual did not qualify as printed...more
On February 8, in Weber, Inc. v. Provisur Technologies, Inc., the Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and held that Weber’s operating manuals are prior art printed publications despite their...more
On February 9, the fiery battle between grill manufacturers Traeger Pellet Grills LLC and GMG Products LLC heads to the Federal Circuit for oral argument. Appealing from a Section 337 determination, GMG has beef with the...more
In AO Kaspersky Lab v. Open Text Inc., the PTAB denied inter partes review after determining that a screenshot of a GitHub repository was insufficient to establish that a whitepaper posted to that repository qualified as a...more
Director Jason A. Fitzsimmons and Counsel Richard A. Crudo will present the “Developments in IPR Estoppel” webinar on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, at 1:00 PM ET. The possibility of being estopped from asserting prior art in...more
On May 13, 2021, the Québec government introduced Bill 96, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec (the Bill), proposing significant amendments to Québec’s Charter of the French Language (the...more
You can be denied a U.S. patent if the application you submit to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is not “new” and “non-obvious.” In determining whether something is “new” and “non-obvious,” U.S. patent examiners...more
On February 22, the FDIC, Federal Reserve Board, and the OCC announced the publication of a joint notice and request for comment proposing changes to three versions of the Call Report (FFIEC 031, FFIEC 041, and FFIEC 051)...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied a petition to institute inter partes review, finding there was no reasonable likelihood that petitioners would prevail on their obviousness challenges. In rendering its decision, the...more
A judge in the District of Delaware has ruled that an estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) does not apply to prior-art products, even if those products are “cumulative” of prior-art patents or printed publications that were...more
Weber, Inc. v. Provisur Technologies, Inc. (IPR-2020-01556) - Earlier this year, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) held in Weber v. Provisur Technologies, Inc. that operating manuals under lock and key did not...more
In a recent order, the Eastern District of Texas declined to preclude a defendant from raising prior art system references despite patentee’s argument that similar printed publications could have been raised in earlier inter...more
In a recent decision, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board found that no claims challenged were unpatentable, after finding manuals relied upon as prior art did not qualify as “printed publications” under 35 U.S.C. §...more
Inter partes review (IPR) proceedings raise complex estoppel issues that courts are grappling with and patent litigants must consider. Because patent challengers can assert invalidity in three different tribunals (the...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Love it or hate it, ignore the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at your peril. The introduction of the PTAB as part of the America Invents Act over ten years ago has forever changed...more
The Federal Circuit has recently provided substantial guidance on whether printed publications include documents publicly available via the internet. This article reviews four such cases that illustrate the expansive view...more