Tag: CAFC

Aqua Products Sinks PTAB Decision in Bosch v. Matal

The odd title of this post arose from the fact that defendant Autel U.S., Inc. chose not to appeal its IPR win against Bosch that included invalidation of the claims in suit, and the refusal of the Board to enter an amended claim set proposed by Bosch. With Autel out of the picture, the PTO effectively represented the Board and Acting Director Matal was named as the defendant: Bosch Automotive Service Solutions, LLC v. Joseph Matal (Intervenor), Appeal no. 2015-1928 (Fed. Cir., December 22, 2017).

The technology claimed was directed to an improved device for transmitting data from the tire pressure sensor to the receiving unit in the vehicle, that was “universal” in that the user could check the data when working with different types of tires and receivers (U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,796).

In the IPR judgment, the Board found one set of Bosch’s proposed claims to be indefinite and one set to be obvious. The Fed. Cir. affirmed the Board’s ruling that the original claims were obvious but vacated the Board’s denial of Bosch’s contingent motion to substitute the amended claim set and remanded “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.” Even though the Board had provided some rationale for why the first group of claims proposed by Bosch was indefinite, the Fed. Cir. ruled as to both claim sets that the Board had impermissibly placed the burden of establishing the patentability of both proposed  claim sets on Bosch, in contravention to Aqua Products.

“See Aqua Products, 872 F.3d at 1311 (‘Where the challenger ceases to participate in the IPR and the Board proceeds to final judgment, it is the Board that must justify any finding of unpatentability by reference to evidence of record in the IPR’).”

Although not argued by the parties, the Fed. Cir. ruled that proposed amended claims could be challenged under s. 112.

Perhaps the most important sentence in the opinion is in the Fed. Cir.’s discussion of the Board’s erroneous holding that it was Bosch’s burden to establish the unobviousness of the proposed claims:

“In its final decision, the Board concluded that it was ‘unpersuaded that Bosch has demonstrated that the proposed substitute claims are patentable’  over the prior art… [Citing an earlier Board decision] the Board stated that ‘[t]he patent owner bears the burden of proof in demonstrating patentability of the proposed substitute claims over the prior art in general, and, thus, entitlement to add these claims to its patent.’”

Of course, this suggests that a failure of the Board or of the challenger to meet this burden of proof to demonstrate unpatentability would entitle the patent owner to add the substitute claims. This decision, strongly affirming Aqua Products,  tilts the legal playing field, to favor the patentee, even as it requires more work by the Board.

The Fed. Cir.’s analysis of the original (affirmed) obviousness rejection contains a very thorough discussion of the secondary factors of commercial success, licensing and acclaim by the industry, that I won’t try to summarize, except to note that these remain very difficult to “prove up” in an obviousness dispute, particularly if the patented technology is complex.

© 2017 Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, P.A. All Rights Reserved.

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.