Microsoft Loses Bid For AIA Review Of Web Conference Patent
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Law360, New York (September 29, 2014, 5:34 PM ET) -- The Patent Trial and Appeal Board refused Monday to review under the America Invents Act a patent covering video conference encryption technology that has been asserted against Microsoft Corp.'s Skype and Apple Inc.'s FaceTime, ruling that Microsoft had failed to show the patent was likely invalid.
The board denied Microsoft's inter partes review petition, which alleged that the patent owned by patent assertion entity Secure Web Conference Corp. was anticipated or obvious in view of several earlier patents. The board held that the prior art references cited by Microsoft did not contain some of the features included in Secure Web's patent and that Microsoft's petition failed to explain the argument that it would be obvious to combine the earlier patents to arrive at the patent at issue.
Microsoft's "general contention that if anything is missing from [one reference] it can be found in [the others] leaves us to speculate how the references are combined, and does not sufficiently explain how the claimed subject matter is unpatentable," the board said.
Secure Web is a subsidiary of patent assertion entity ITUS Corp., which was previously known as CopyTele Inc. and has sued numerous major companies over a variety of technologies.
It sued Microsoft in the Eastern District of New York in May 2013, alleging that Skype had infringed two patents, one for a method of securing email attachments and another covering a portable telecommunication security device. The case is pending, and a claim construction hearing was held last week.
ITUS sued Apple over the same two patents earlier this month, alleging that they are infringed by the FaceTime video calling service on iPhones and iPads. ITUS claims that the patents cover encryption technology originally used in devices sold to the U.S. military.
Microsoft filed a petition for inter partes review of the patent covering the portable telecommunication security device in May. It claimed the patent is invalid in view of other patents covering a voice and data encryption device and a secure telephone device, but the PTAB was not persuaded.
In addition, ITUS sued Citrix Systems Inc. and Logitech International over the same two patents in July 2013, alleging that they were infringed by Citrix's GoToMeeting and Logitech’s LifeSize Web conferencing service. However, it filed for stipulated dismissals in both cases earlier this year.
Representatives for the parties could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
The patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent Number 6,856,687.
Microsoft is represented by Jeffrey I.D. Lewis and Ryan Mott of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.
Secure Web is represented by Wayne Helge and Donald Jackson of Davidson Berquist Jackson & Gowdey LLP.
The underlying case is Secure Web Conference Corporation v. Microsoft Corp., case number 2:13-cv-02642, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The case is Microsoft Corp. v. Secure Web Conference Corp., case number IPR2014-00745, before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
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