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State Sovereignty 101: State Universities Not Immune to IPR Proceedings

School may be out for the summer, but public colleges and universities would do well to spend their break shoring up strategies and defenses against potential inter partes review (“IPR”) proceedings. Last week the Federal Circuit ruled that states and state agencies (including state affiliated colleges and universities) may not rely on a sovereign immunity defense in a patent IPR proceeding. This decision means that challenges against University of Minnesota patents will proceed at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (“PTAB”), and that other state affiliated educational institutions also may be subject to such proceedings.

The June 14 decision could open the floodgates to other IPR challenges against patents held by public colleges, universities, and other state entities. State colleges and universities should plan on adjusting various intellectual property clauses of licenses, sponsored research, and other technology transfer and funding agreements in efforts to mitigate the risks associated with an IPR challenge. These institutions also should carefully evaluate and plan for this risk in any assertion or even licensing efforts where a risk of an IPR may arise. Further, public colleges and universities should develop internal strategic plans to reduce the risk of an IPR occurring and to have various strategic approaches to IPR situations should an IPR challenge, or even a threat of an IPR challenge, occur in the future.

In the dispute, Ericsson challenged multiple patents held by the University of Minnesota relating to wireless technologies. The University of Minnesota also faces separate patent challenges to a computer hardware patent and a university patent related to hepatitis C medication.

The Federal Circuit held that for purposes of IPRs, state sovereign immunity is essentially the same as tribal sovereign immunity held by Native American tribes. In 2018, the Federal Circuit ruled that Saint Regis Mohawk could not employ tribal sovereign immunity in a dispute before the PTAB.

“[An] IPR represents the sovereign’s reconsideration of the initial patent grant, and the differences between state and tribal sovereign immunity do not warrant a different result than Saint Regis. We therefore conclude that state sovereign immunity does not apply to IPR proceedings,” the Court wrote in the June 14 ruling. Regents of the Univ. of Minn. V. LSI Corp., No. 2018-1559, 27 (Fed. Cir. Jun. 14, 2019).

The Federal Circuit also wrote that IPR proceedings differ substantively from typical civil litigation, to which sovereign immunity would normally apply unless waived. Instead, the Court writes that IPR proceedings “are essentially agency reconsideration of a prior patent grant.”

In other words, IPRs are more akin to a government agency enforcement action than a civil suit. The PTAB’s primary focus is determining whether a previous patent grant was made in error, rather than resolving a dispute between two adversarial parties. The PTAB may issue a ruling even if the petitioner or patent owner decides not to participate, unlike in civil litigation.

A petition for certiorari was filed in Saint Regis but was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court, which effectively allowed the Federal Circuit decision to stand. It remains to be seen if the University of Minnesota will appeal this ruling or if certiorari would be granted, but if allowed to stand, it is fair to anticipate a significant increase in patent IPR challenges to public colleges and universities as well as to other state agencies.

Click here to read the full opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Article written by Mark D. Shelley II, Ph.D., Kristin Lamb, Liz LeVan Riley and Jeffrey S. Whittle of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP.

Read more about patent inter partes review proceedings on the National Law Review Intellectual Property page.

SAS Indirectly Strengthens the Impact of Estoppel

The Supreme Court decision in SAS Institute v. Iancu^[i]will likely strengthen a patent owner’s ability to argue in favor of estoppel and keep a petitioner from getting multiple bites at the invalidity apple in parallel PTAB and district court proceedings. At first glance the Supreme Court’s recent decision appears to be another setback to patent owners. Instead of quickly defeating post grant challenges to at least some challenged claims pursuant to a denial of institution, patent owners will now have to fight petitions even if the Board finds merit with only a single ground challenging patentability. Upon closer examination, however, SAS’s implications for estoppel are favorable and may even resolve a split concerning the scope of estoppel.

The Supreme Court Directive in SAS

SAS addressed the PTAB’s “partial institution” policy, under which the PTAB claimed the power to institute an IPR with respect to only some of the claims challenged in a petition. In SAS, the Supreme Court rejected that policy. The Court explained that if the PTAB decides to institute an IPR, 35 U.S.C. § 318(a) provides that PTAB “shall issue a final written decision with respect to the patentability of any patent claim challenged by the petitioner.” Emphasizing the statute’s use of the phrase “any patent claim,” the Court held that PTAB cannot pick and choose which claims to address, but must instead take the petition as it finds it.^[ii] The Court found further support for its interpretation in the structure of the inter partes review process “in which it’s the petitioner, not the Director, who gets to define the contours of the proceeding.”^[iii]

The Split on Estoppel

The partial institution policy that SAS rejected has created a split in the interpretation of estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e). Section 315(e)(2) provides that “[t]he petitioner in an inter partes review . . . that results in a final written decision under section 318(a) . . . may not assert . . . in a civil action . . . that the claim is invalid on any ground that the petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised during that inter partes review.” Congress intended this provision to preclude the same party from re-litigating invalidity in the district court once it had chosen to do so through an IPR. As then-Director of the PTO David Kappos testified, the “estoppel provisions mean that your patent is largely unchallengeable by the same party.”[iv] Similarly, Senator Grassley stated that IPR review “will completely substitute for at least the patents-and-printed-publications portion of the civil litigation.”^[v]

Notwithstanding the apparently broad estoppel envisioned by Congress, some courts have interpreted § 315(e) more narrowly. For example, in Shaw Industries Group, Inc. v. Automated Creel Systems, Inc., the Federal Circuit explained that where PTAB partially instituted an IPR, the petitioner was not estopped from raising a ground in district court that it had included in its IPR petition but on which PTAB did not institute. The court reasoned that the non-instituted ground was not raised “during th[e] inter partes review.”^[vi]Similarly, in HP Inc. v. MPHJ Technology Investment, LLC, the Federal Circuit explained that “noninstituted grounds do not become a part of the IPR,” and “[a]ccordingly, the noninstituted grounds were not raised and, as review was denied, could not be raised in the IPR.” The court therefore held that “the estoppel provisions of § 315(e)(1) do not apply.”^[vii]Other courts have followed suit and even extended that holding.^[viii]

A broader interpretation of estoppel tracks what many believe to be the statutory intent, however, as a party should not get two bites at the apple and be able to seek review at both the PTAB and in the district court. Adopting this view, the court in Biscotti Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. cabined Shaw and HP to their facts, holding that they “exempt an IPR petitioner from § 315(e)’s estoppel provision only if the PTAB precludes the petitioner from raising a ground during the IPR proceeding for purely procedural reasons.”[ix] Thus, the court held that § 315(e) estopped the petitioner from asserting any ground that (1) was included in PTAB’s final written decision, (2) was not instituted for non-procedural reasons, or (3) was not included in the petition.[x] Any other decision would result in needlessly protracted litigation as petitioners would re-litigate arguments similar to those that it had already lost or strategically chose not to include in a petition.[xi] The court in Douglas Dynamics, LLC v. Meyer Products LLCtook a similar view with respect to non-petitioned grounds, holding that estoppel applies “to grounds not asserted in the IPR petition, so long as they are based on prior art that could have been found by a skilled searcher’s diligent search.”[xii]

SAS Strengthens Patent Owners’ Estoppel Arguments Because a Petitioner is Deemed to be the “Master of its Complaint”

While SAS had nothing to do with estoppel on its face, much of the disagreement regarding the scope of estoppel arose out of the PTAB’s partial institution policy and the effect of estoppel on non-instituted claims. Because the PTAB no longer has discretion as to partial institution, courts will no longer have to struggle with whether a petitioner is estopped from raising non-instituted grounds for unpatentability in a subsequent or parallel district court proceeding. While a few open issues remain, the patent owner will still be able to argue that SAS supports the idea that petitioners should only get one opportunity to challenge patentability—either at the PTAB or before a jury. The Supreme Court directive from SAS, coupled with recent guidance from the PTAB, suggests that the divide between the broad (Biscotti and Douglas Dynamics) and narrow (Shaw and HP) interpretations of estoppel—at least with respect to pre-institution decisions from the PTAB—may be merging.

Moreover, while SAS does not explicitly resolve whether a petitioner is estopped from arguing non-petitionedclaims in a parallel district court case, the premise behind the Supreme Court’s decision—that the petitioner is the master of its own petition—suggests that estoppel should apply. Some commentators have predicted that because PTAB must now choose between full institution and full denial, “petitioners [will] have an incentive to focus their petitions even further—when choosing claims to challenge, grounds to assert, and prior art to cite—in order to ensure that the likelihood of full institution is greater than the likelihood of full denial.”^[xiii] But filing a targeted (and therefore stronger) petition may run the risk of estoppel on any non-petitioned claim. As Biscotti and Douglas Dynamics indicate, petitioners should not be permitted to hold arguments in reserve in case of an unfavorable result at the PTAB. Moreover, SAS supports Biscotti’s and Douglas Dynamic’s interpretation of the meaning of “during” the IPR. While Shaw characterized an IPR as not beginning until institution,^[xiv]SAS depicts post grant review as a single process that begins with petitioner defining the scope of the proceeding in its petition.^[xv]Applying estoppel to non-petitioned claims would not be inconsistent with a courts’ concern “that estoppel applies only to those arguments, or potential arguments, that received (or reasonably could have received) proper judicial attention^.”[xvi]

Further, SAS will still enable patent owners to rely on the same line of cases to argue for procedural estoppel. Before SAS, the PTAB frequently denied institution in view of procedural deficiencies.^[xvii]Now, however, the PTAB will be faced with either denying institution for failure to comply with PTAB rules or allowing institution on all grounds even where some of the challenges are procedurally improper. For example, petitioners could present a single procedurally proper argument to open the door to review and evade page limit requirements by packing the remainder of the petition with grounds that must also be instituted under SAS but that are supported only by improper incorporations by reference.^[xviii] While denying institution because of procedural failings could preclude the petitioner from filing another (procedurally proper) petition making the same arguments,[xix] the petitioner, as “master of its complaint,” could have drafted its petition correctly from the start.^[xx]In short, the petitioner’s failure to follow the rules should not justify a second bite at the validity apple.

Finally, pending petitions subject to partial institution could have the same consequences depending on the action of the petitioner post-SAS. PTAB guidance indicates that in such cases, “the panel may issue an order supplementing the institution decision to institute on all challenges raised in the petition.”^[xxi] If a petitioner fails to seek supplemental institution or fails to appeal the PTAB’s refusal to supplement, estoppel could apply. While some courts might continue following Shaw and HP by holding that non-instituted claims were not raised “during” the IPR, petitioner “could have raised” those claims and arguments “during” the IPR—even under Shaw’s interpretation—given SAS’s holding because the petitioner should have sought to remedy the non-institution.

The Takeaway

While not obvious at first glance, SAS follows recent decisions like General Plastics that tend to protect patent owners’ rights. While the focus of SAS was on institution and the scope of institution, the Court has armed patent owners with another weapon with which they can challenge serial review of the same patent on the same grounds in multiple petitions and district court proceedings.

_{[i] No. 16-969 (Apr. 24, 2018).}

_{[ii] Id., slip op. at 1, 4-5.}

_{[iii] Id., slip op. at 12.}

_{[iv] Hr’g on H.R. 1249 Before the Subcomm. on Intell. Prop., Competition and the Internet of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 112th Cong. (2011) (statement of David Kappos, Dir., USPTO) (“Those estoppel provisions mean that your patent is largely unchallengeable by the same party.”)}

_{[v] 157 Cong. Rec. S1360-94 (daily ed. Mar. 8, 2011) (statement of Sen. Grassley) (claiming that the estoppel provision “ensures that if aninter partes review is instituted while litigation is pending, that review will completely substitute for at least the patents-and-printed-publications portion of the civil litigation”).}

_{[vi] 817 F.3d 1293, 1300 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2)).}

_{[vii] 817 F.3d 1339, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2016).}

_{[ See, e.g., Verinata Health, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7728, at *8-10 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 19, 2017); Illumina, Inc. v. Qiagen N.V., 207 F. Supp. 3d 1081, 1089 (N.D. Cal. 2016).viii]}

_{[ix] 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144164, at *21-22 (E.D. Tex. May 11, 2017).}

_{[x] Id. at *22.}

_{[xi] Id. at *17-18, *20-21.}

_{[xii] 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58773, at *15.}

_{[xiii] Saurabh Vishnubhakat, First Steps After SAS Institute, Patently-O (Apr. 27, 2018), https://patentlyo.com/patent/2018/04/first-steps-institute.html}

_{[xiv] 817 F.3d at 1300.}

_{[xv] Slip op. at 6, 9.}

_{[xvi] Verinata, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7728, at *10.}

_{[xvii] See, e.g., Shenzhen Huiding Technology Co., Ltd. v. Synaptics Incorporated, IPR2015-01741, Paper 8 at 29-31 (PTAB Aug. 7, 2015) (partially denying institution due to improper incorporation by reference); Bomtech Elec., Co. Ltd. v. Medium-Tech Medizingeräte GmbH, Case No. IPR2014-00138, Paper No. 8 at 32-33 (PTAB Apr. 22, 2014) (same).}

_{[xviii] See 37 C.F.R. § 42.6(a)(3).}

_{[xix] General Plastic Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, IPR2016-01357, Paper 19 (PTAB Sept. 6, 2017).}

_[xx] Id.

_{[xxi] Guidance on the Impact of SAS on AIA Trial Proceedings (Apr. 26, 2018) (emphasis added).}

This post was written by Scott W. Hejny and Chelsea Priest of McKool Smith.

PTO Releases Revised Guidance on Compliance with Mayo/Alice Rule

On April 19, the USPTO released a Memorandum from Robert Bahr, The Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy, that summarized the support required for a finding if a claim directed to a judicial exception to s. 101 eligibility under Step 2A of the Mayo/Alice analysis chart of MPEP 2106 – a natural phenomenon, an abstract idea or a product of nature [ ed. note “PAIN’]– contains an additional inventive concept that, taken alone or in combination, would not represent well-understood, routine, or conventional [“WRC”] activity. The Memorandum was prompted by the recent decision in Berkheimer v. HP, 881 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

At virtually the same time, Director Iancu released a Request for Comments on Determining Whether a claim element is [WRC] for the Purposes of Subject Matter Eligibility, and it pretty much repeats the factors listed in the Bahr Memorandum. For a detailed summary of the factual underpinnings that an examiner must make in order to support a rejection on the basis that a claim directed to a PAIN does not meet the inventive concept requirement because it is WRC, please refer to my post of April 20^th.

I criticized the four factors outlined in the Memorandum/Request for using the s. 112 standard that that which is known to the art need not be set forth fully in the specification, as a blaze mark to guide examiners in determining whether the additional elements(s) in the claim are WRC. In other words, if the specification does not give the details of how to measure a biomarker, the examiner can use such facts to support a WRC finding. This relying on material not present in the specification is repeated in Factors 1, 3 and 4. I also criticized Factor 2 as permitting examiners to simply cite to “one or more court decisions discussed in MPEP 2106(5)(d)(2)” as noting the WRC nature of the additional element(s) in the claim, primarily due to the breadth of the summaries of the cases in this section of the MPEP.

The Revised Guidance in the May 8^th Presentation (which is available as a slideshow from the PTO) takes these two criticisms to heart. It drops the reference to the value of a s. 112 analysis in Factors relating to the evidence of WRC provided by the specification, the disclosures in the prior art and the ability of the examiner to take official notice of the WRC, which usually will be based upon disclosures in the prior art.

The Revised Guidelines start out by stating that the examiner should conclude that a claim element(s) represents only WRC activity only if he/she can conclude that the element(s) is “widely prevalent or in common use in the relevant industry,” a conclusion that must be supported by factual determinations. Here is a quick run-down of the four “Options” that the examiner can use to demonstrate that a claim directed to PAIN does not contain more than elements that are WRC (These are mostly my words):

Applicant makes a “statement against interest” in the specification or during prosecution that a claim element(s) is conventional, widely prevalent or in common use, or is a commercially available product.
The examiner can cite to one or more court decisions as noting the WRC nature of the additional elements, as reported in MPEP 2106(d)(II). I criticized this as overly broad, especially in view of the fact that there is almost no case law involving diagnostic testing or methods of medical treatment. Interestingly, in Vanda v. West-Ward, the Fed. Cir. stated that the Mayo claims were diagnostic claims. This is a stretch – What condition did they diagnose? The recited patient had been treated with the drug before any sample testing was carried out. However, the revised guidelines make it clear that the additional element in the claim must be the same as the element addressed in the court case, as well as the fact that the case must be on the MPEP list. Vanda v. West-Ward should be added to this list.
The examiner finds prior art publication(s) that demonstrate that the element(s) in questions are WRC, not just in existence at some point in the past. This should come from the prior art located in the search done by the Examiner or disclosed by Applicant.
The examiner is permitted to take official notice of the WRC of the additional element(s) but only to be used when the examiner is certain thereof based upon his/her personal knowledge. For all but the most indisputable WRC, the examiner may be required to provide a declaration under 37 CFR 1.104(d)(2).

If more than one element is present, the examiner must show that the combination of the elements is WRC in the pertinent art. If the examiner cited to a publication not previously of record in response to an argument by applicant, the office action should not be made final.

Comments must be received by Aug. 20, 2018 by submitting them to Eligibilty2018@USPTO.gov.

This post was written by Warren Woessner of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, P.A.

Read more updates on Mayo/Alice on the National Law Review’s Intellectual Property Page.

Getting Closer to put the UPC into Force

April 26, 2018 is a remarkable date: first it’s World IP Day celebrating IP around the world. Second, and this is unique, the British IP Minister Sam Gyimah MP announced that the UK ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPC Agreement). By doing so the UK agreed to be bound to both the UPC agreement and the UPC’s Protocol on Privileges and Immunities (PPI). The UPC will be a court common to the contracting member states within the EU having exclusive competence in respect of European Patents and European Patents with unitary effect.

In addition to Paris and Munich, London hosts a section of the Court’s central Division dealing with patents in the field of life sciences and pharmaceuticals. The way is now open for discussion about UK’s future within the UPC system after-Brexit. As of today, the UPC Agreement is ratified by 16 countries of the European Union.

To bring the Agreement into force, UK, France and Germany have to ratify the UPC Agreement and the PPI, now everyone is waiting for Germany, as France has already ratified.

Germany’s completion is currently on hold due to a constitutional complaint pending before the German Federal Constitutional Court. According to rumours abound in the German IP community this complaint might be dismissed and the ratification will be finished during this year.

It’s time to get ready for playing with the new system!

This post was written by Christiane Schweizer of K & L Gates.

Read more on intellectual property on the National Law Review’s Intellectual Property Page.

Are Foreign Lost Profits Really Lost?

On January 12, 2018, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Federal Circuit’s lost profits decision in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., 791 F.3d 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2015), marking the first step toward defining the scope of recovery for damages in the form of lost foreign sales. Under the Patent Act, damages are governed by § 284, which provides:

Upon finding for the claimant the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer, together with interest and costs as fixed by the court.

While § 284 allows patent owners to recover lost profits and reasonable royalties, the statute is silent as to whether these damages should encompass overseas losses (i.e., from foreign sales or contracts), which could play an important and substantial role in elevating damages – especially for patent holders with international contracts and services.

Background

WesternGeco LLC (“WesternGeco”) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited, a worldwide provider of reservoir drilling and processing technology in the oil and gas industry. Relevant to this case, WesternGeco LLC provides reservoir monitoring and imaging services to help perform seismic surveys. ION Geophysical Corp. (“ION”) offers similar services as WesternGeco and is a competitor.

In 2009, WesternGeco sued ION for patent infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(1)-(2). Specifically, 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) provides:

Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention . . . in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent . . . shall be liable as an infringer.
Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States any component of a patented invention that is especially made or especially adapted for use in the invention and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use . . . knowing that such component is so made or adapted and intending that such component will be combined outside of the United States . . . shall be liable as an infringer.

The district court found for WesternGeco, awarding it $93,400,000 in lost profits and $12,500,000 in reasonable royalties as damages. On appeal, however, the panel majority reversed the district court’s award of lost profits, observing that the “presumption against extraterritoriality is well-established and undisputed.” Moreover, the Federal Circuit previously stated in Power Integrations v. Fairchild Semiconductor, “[Our patent laws] do not thereby provide compensation for a defendant’s foreign exploitation of a patented invention, which is not infringement at all.” In effect, the majority held that “[u]nder Power Integrations, WesternGeco cannot recover lost profits resulting from its failure to win foreign service contracts.”

WesternGeco’s Petition

WesternGeco filed two petitions for certiorari. Based on the first petition, the Supreme Court vacated the Federal Circuit’s opinion in light of Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., 136 S. Ct. 1923 (2016). On remand, however, the Federal Circuit reinstated its opinion and judgment as to lost profits. As a result, WesternGeco filed a second petition for certiorari on February 17, 2017, which presented the following question:

Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that lost profits arising from prohibited combinations occurring outside of the United States are categorically unavailable in cases where patent infringement is proven under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f).

In its petition, WesternGeco argued that the majority panel “applied the presumption against extraterritoriality in such a duplicative manner [that] defeat[ed] Congress’ intent in enacting § 271(f).” Therefore, the decision “effectively eliminate[d] lost profit damages where infringement is found under § 271(f), limiting patent owners only to a reasonable royalty.” WesternGeco also distinguished its case from Power Integrations, by arguing that “Power Integrations dealt with infringement under § 271(a)” and therefore “reflects no comparable congressional judgment to target certain extraterritorial conduct.”

In an amicus curiae brief submitted on behalf of the United States, the Solicitor General urged the Court to hear this case, stating that the Federal Circuit’s “approach systematically undercompensates prevailing patentees like petitioner, whose transnational business suffered when respondent infringed petitioner’s patents within the United States.”

In addition, WesternGeco argued that allowing patentees to recover lost profits from international sales would be consistent with copyright law, which has been found by several circuits to permit parties to recover foreign damages so long as those damages are directly linked to a domestic predicate act of infringement.

Implications

Although the Supreme Court, in its 2007 opinion in Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., previously “[r]ecogniz[ed] [that] § 271(f) is an exception to the general rule that [U.S.] patent law does not apply extraterritorially,” the Court ultimately “resist[ed] giving the language . . . an expansive interpretation.”

Patent holders should be aware that the Supreme Court’s decision in WesternGeco may present an opportunity to expand the scope of damages claims to encompass international losses caused by infringement in the United States.

This post was written by Jeffrey J. Catalono and Judy K. He of Brinks, Gilson & Lione.

Read more Intellectual Property News at the Intellectual Property Page.

Have you ever used a one-click ordering process online? Then you indirectly paid Amazon.

If you purchased anything from a website using a one-click purchase button, you indirectly paid Amazon for that ability, at least up until September 11, 2017 when Amazon’s patent to this technology expired. As a result, one-click purchasing might become the new norm.

In 1997, Amazon filed for a business method patent to one-click purchasing, which allows return shoppers to purchase items with just a single click of a button instead of having to proceed through a prolonged checkout process. The patent issued in 1999, at which point Amazon sued Barnes & Noble for patent infringement based on a similar technology used during Barnes & Noble’s checkout process. After extended litigation, the two companies settled in 2002. Not wanting to face similar litigation, Apple licensed the patent in 2000 to simplify ordering from the Apple Store.

The patent was extremely contentious, causing multiple calls to tighten patent laws or eliminate business method patents entirely. In response to the numerous attacks on the patent, Jeff Bezos called on the US Patent and Trademark Office to reduce the lifespan of patents to only 3 to 5 years, which prompted the US Patent and Trademark Office to issue an action plan to work with e-commerce companies to strengthen issued business method patents. But despite facing numerous challenges over the years, the patent survived. Thus if you have ordered anything online using a one-click purchase process, that company likely paid a licensing fee to Amazon to be able to provide that option.

Since the patent is now expired, one-click purchasing is now open to every online retailer. Large technology companies, such as Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft, are developing standardized one-click checkout procedures that can be applied internet-wide and that follow you from website to website. Google is likewise developing technology to incorporate one-click purchasing into its internet browser, Chrome.

This post was written by Lisa Adams and Derek E. Constantine of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

Aglets, Who Knew?

SneakRTech Corp. wants you to defend their patent and challenge BadGuys, Incorporated’s patent at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The subject matter: aglets.

You run to the internet and find that “aglets” are the metal or plastic component on the end of a shoelace. Even more, you are surprised to find that the science of aglets is varied and deep. There is technology behind the manufacturing of the aglets themselves, the assembly of the aglets to the laces, and the design of the aglets such that they easily insert into the eyelets of the shoe. Chemistry and material science play a role in the technology related to aglets – both metallurgy and polymer science. Some of these disciplines are relatively old (e.g., at least 15 years ago they were well developed), while some disciplines are rapidly evolving (e.g., nanocoatings to provide a color-change depending on the temperature of the environment).

To complicate things further, the patents being defended and challenged have very different applications—one is an aglet for a desert rock climbing shoe, known to be exposed to high heat, low humidity, and abrasive conditions. The other is directed to a snowboarding boot aglet.

So now you face important questions. Do you need two experts? And how do you choose an expert? There are a least four considerations associated with finding the right expert.

1. Make a wish-list

The first step in selecting an expert is simple – make a wish-list of the ideal traits you want in your expert. This requires answering, or at least thinking about, several questions.

What, and how many, technology spaces are claimed? Consider whether you need multiple experts, based on the variation in technology, including between claims of the same patent. Although Daubert seems to come up less at the PTAB, consider how to position yourself so that any expert you choose will survive a Daubert challenge.

For our example, think about desired attributes of the eventual selected expert. Are we looking for an expert in aglet design, or perhaps manufacturing processes related to attaching the aglets to the lace themselves? Are we looking for industry or academic expertise, or both? Are we looking for a focused specialist in aglets or a broader expertise in understanding the chemistry, material science, and nanotechnology of aglets. Where is the eyelet going to be (e.g., dress shoe, trail runner, hockey skates, etc.)? Does it matter?

What level of education is required to helpfully explain the technology, and relatedly, how are we planning to define the person-of-ordinary-skill-in-the-art? If the technology is relatively developed, how will our expert opine on the state-of-the-art at a time where she may not have even been out of undergraduate school?

Do you need an experienced expert with deposition and court appearances, or will a more novice expert work?

2. Identify potential expert types and sources

Once you have a wish-list of what you want in an expert, you need to determine where to look to find it. A good start can be to research publications, patents, and industry groups in the claimed technology space.

For example, one aglet patent may relate to electroplating processes of aglets specifically designed to be applied after the aglet is attached to the lace, involving complex chemistry and manufacturing concerns. The other aglet patent could be focused on shape design for ease of entry into an eyelet on a shoe.

For the first aglet, the complex chemistry may require a high level of education. The latter aglet may be better suited to a manufacturing engineer having hands on experience in a final assembly plant, or an industrial designer focused on customer experience. These experts may travel in vastly different circles, and may lend themselves to different types of searching. Additionally, consider whether you’re looking for a generalist or a specialist. For specialist experts, several databases are available to search theses/dissertations. This may provide a list of potential experts to consider that have studied your issue deeply.

3. Consider using an expert service – or two

A helpful shortcut to finding your expert and getting them retained early can be utilizing an expert search service. As a practical matter, it can be helpful to use such a service to ensure quick turnaround, especially if you have a good relationship with the headhunter. You can take steps to make the search consultant’s job easier, which will net better results. This includes providing them a list of experts already disqualified, for example based on conflicts, co-counsel or client preference, etc. Coordination with the client and co-counsel is key, and evaluating potential experts and developing the definition of a person of ordinary skill in the art can quickly narrow the list of available experts.

Additionally, provide the expert service your anticipated timeline—it is critical that the expert is available when you need them (e.g., to prepare a declaration, at deposition(s), etc.).

4. Nail the expert interview – gain knowledge and assess quickly

The interview phase needs to include at least three considerations: experience as an expert, substantive background in the technology, and availability now and throughout trial. If an expert has never been deposed before, try to determine whether they have the soft skills needed to be effectively cross-examined. Push them to see how they react to hard questions both substantively and temperamentally. Ask them for some strategy advice for your case to see how they think. Research them – look for skeletons before hiring them. Ask for references.

You now have two experts: Ms. Boot and Dr. Slipper, PhD., to assist on two separate aglet patent cases.

For more Intellectual Property legal analysis, go to The National Law Review

Brewers & Blades: Avoiding Exhaustion in Products with Consumable Parts

A product with consumable or replaceable parts can be complicated to patent. These kinds of products have a reusable base component and replaceable widgets that work with it. Think razor handles with disposable razor blades, coffee brewers with coffee pods, or table saws with replaceable blades. Sales of the widgets may create a substantial revenue stream, but what’s to stop an interloper from copying the widgets and undercutting these continuing sales? Patents! Right? Maybe; as long as you’ve been careful to patent the right aspects of your products and to avoid running afoul of the patent exhaustion doctrine. This doctrine “exhausts” a patentee’s patent rights in a product after it has been sold. The exhaustion is expansive. Courts have held a method claim automatically exhausted by the exhaustion of an apparatus claim in the same patent.^[1] Very recently, the Supreme Court may have expanded the doctrine about as far as it can go: now all patent rights are exhausted regardless of any attempt at post-sale restriction, and regardless of the location of the sale.^[2] In other words any sale, anywhere, exhausts all patent rights in the sold product.

Suppose you run a prolific company that makes coffee brewers that use single-serve disposable pods and also makes table saws with replaceable blades. For each product your business model might depend on controlling the pods or blades used with your product. For instance, if you take a loss on your coffee brewer intending to make up for it in sales of coffee pods, a patent covering the pods may be more valuable than one covering the brewer. If you intend to develop a licensing program for third-party saw blades, a patent covering a saw blade’s interface with your table saw may be crucial. So how might one breathe more easily despite the patent exhaustion doctrine to keep infringement claims viable? Here are some suggestions.

Patent your widgets separately. If patented together with the base component you may not be able to escape exhaustion of your patent claim, since your sale of the base component may “exhaust” your rights in the claim with respect to that sale. By patenting the widget separately—and in a separate patent—there is less chance of its claims being exhausted by sale of the base component. Keeping your widgets separate also minimizes your exposure to other pitfalls, such as being limited to contributory infringement claims.

Patent with your design strategy in mind. A robust design patent strategy can be a great tool to prevent knock-off widgets from cutting into market share. Strategic claim drafting in a design patent can in many cases provide claim scope broad enough to cover unauthorized widgets of varying configurations that may work with the base component. This is accomplished through the creative use of solid and broken lines in the drawings to claim particular aspects of the widget design, so long as the design of these aspects is not dictated by their function. This strategy can be especially helpful where it may be difficult or time-consuming to get a utility patent claim broad enough to stop knockoff widgets. And because your design patents will be directed to the widgets themselves, they are unlikely to fall victim to exhaustion due to sale of the base component.

Design with your patent strategy in mind. Designers may find it useful to over-design the parts of the base component and the widget that interact, with two additional goals in mind: (1) at least the widget side of the interaction should include a standalone novel feature, whether functional, ornamental, or both; (2) the interaction should only properly work with a widget including the novel feature. This may provide the opportunity for strong and specific utility or design patent claims directed to the widget that can be used to prevent unauthorized knockoff widgets.

Make your widgets disappear. Now that the Supreme Court has in some ways sanctioned unauthorized re-use of spent widgets, patents may not stop a competitor from re-filling and re-selling them. But what if there’s nothing left to re-fill? If possible, consider making your entire widget consumable by the base component or making it only survive a single use intact, so that it is not re-fillable and a customer will be left to simply recycle the remainder.

These suggestions can augment a careful patenting strategy to help combat crafty interlopers and circumvent courts’ hostile stance toward downstream control of products after their sale. A strategic combination of product design and intellectual property law can be a key tool in protecting investments in developing such products. A bold, full-bodied patent prosecution strategy can help cut through the unique difficulties in protecting investment in products that use consumable parts. Involving your patent counsel in the early stages of product design can be the difference between a sale that exhausts your patent rights, and one that leaves the company buzzing with viable patent protection that rips through the competition.

_{[1] See Keurig Inc. v. Sturm Foods, Inc., 732 F.3d 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2013).}

_{[2] See Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., 15-1189 (May 30, 2017).}

This post was written by Daniel A. Gajewski and Mark W. Rygiel of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.

More legal analysis is available at The National Law Review.

Stanford University’s Loss in Interferences of Three Patents Covering Testing Methods for Fetal Aneuploidies for Lack of Written Description is Vacated

The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University v. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Jun. 27, 2017, Before O’Malley, Reyna, and Chen.

Takeaway:

The Federal Circuit declined to reconsider its decision in Biogen MA, Inc. v. Japanese Found. for Cancer Research, 785 F.3d 648 (Fed. Cir. 2015) that parties cannot bring civil actions in district court under 35 U.S.C. § 146 for review of the PTAB’s decisions in interferences declared on or after September 16, 2012.
In evaluating whether a claim satisfies the written description requirement, the fact finder may consider what a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand from a description of a product or technique in the specification as of the filing date of the application. Post-filing date publications may only be used as evidence of the state of the art existing on the filing date.

Procedural Posture:

Stanford University (“Stanford”) appealed from orders of the PTAB in three interference proceedings between Stanford and Chinese University of Hong Kong (“CUHK”), which found the claims of three Stanford patents directed to testing methods for fetal aneuploidies unpatenable for lack of written description. The appeal was initially filed pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 146 in the District Court for the Northern District of California, and the parties engaged in discovery there. On May 7, 2015, the Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision in Biogen MA, Inc. v. Japanese Found. for Cancer Research, 785 F.3d 648 (Fed. Cir. 2015), holding that under the AIA, for interferences declared after September 15, 2012, an appeal from an interference decision has to be made to the Federal Circuit. The parties then jointly requested transfer from the Northern District of California to the Federal Circuit, which was granted. The Federal Circuit considered the case on the merits, vacated and remanded.

Interference:

The Federal Circuit declined to revisit its holding in Biogen, noting that although Stanford briefed this issue in its opening brief, Stanford did not raise this issue again in its reply brief or in oral argument. Rehearing en banc and a petition for certiorari in the Biogen case were denied; thus, in the Federal Circuit’s view, “Biogen is the law in this circuit and we, as a panel, will not revisit it.”
The Federal Circuit declined to consider the record developed during discovery in the district court. Because the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the interference decisions, the Federal Circuit agreed with CUHK’s position that the activities in the district court were a nullity and should not be considered by the Federal Circuit or remanded to the Board for consideration.

Written Description:

Sufficiency of written description is evaluated from the perspective of one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, “by examining the record evidence as to pre-filing date art-related facts.” The post-filing date publications may be considered to the extent they “contain art-related facts … existing on the filing date,” but may not be used as a source for the knowledge about art-related facts that did not exist on the filing date.
The Board awarded patents in interferences to CUHK because it found that the Stanford patents’ specification disclosed “targeted” rather than “random” sequencing, and the specification would not have indicated to one of ordinary skill in the art that Stanford’s inventor Dr. Quake was in possession of the claimed random massively parallel sequencing (“MPS”) method. The Federal Circuit held that the PTAB erred because it did not adequately explain why the Illumina platform for sequencing DNA, referenced and described in Stanford’s original application, did not provide sufficient written description support for random sequencing. The Board improperly relied on the testimony of CUHK’s expert, who only described that an earlier sequencing technique, Roche 454, was used for targeted sequencing, and “failed to cite to the Roche 454 references with specificity.” The Board also erred in finding that, because Stanford’s application did not preclude targeted MPS sequencing, it did not disclose to a person of ordinary skill in the art random MPS sequencing.

This post was written by Georg C. Reitboeck Ksenia Takhistova Christopher Gresalfi of Andrews Kurth Kenyon.

USPTO Freedom Of Information Act Inquiry

The Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) can be a very powerful tool. It provides unqualified right to access certain public records. Patent attorney Gary Shuster used it to file a FOIA request (Request No. F-17-00099) with the USPTO on January 26, 2017, seeking the following:

1. Any document written by or on behalf of Michelle Lee constituting a resignation from office, a request to withdraw a resignation from office, or a request to refrain from her position.

2. The most current document identifying the Director of the USPTO or, if there is no director, the acting director of the USPTO.

3. Any written instructions received between January 20, 2017 and the date of this request regarding deletion of any data from web sites operated by or on behalf of the USPTO, including USPTO.com.

To spare the USPTO having to compile and produce all documents responsive to this request, Shuster offered: “In the alternative, you may satisfy this request by simply answering the following question: Who is the current director or acting director of the USPTO?”

On February 24, 2017, USPTO FOIA specialist Karon Seldon sent Shuster a letter stating that the agency was extending the time limit, citing FOIA provisions allowing extensions in “unusual circumstances.” This is a FOIA provision which provides an extension may be claimed in usual circumstances where there is a “need for consultation … with another Federal Agency having a substantial interest in the determination of the request.” This is likely to give a bit of breathing room to determine how the Trump administration will affect the decision.

The new deadline for response is March 10, 2017. Although it’s currently a bit of a mystery, we’ll see tomorrow who will be named to the Director role.

ARTICLE BY Annie Dike of IMS ExpertServices

Tag: patent

State Sovereignty 101: State Universities Not Immune to IPR Proceedings

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