InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[olddog967]

LTE: Under the new inter parted review (IPR) review procedures that took effect on September 16, 2012, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) was replaced by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The PTAB conducts the review, with their final written decision being directly appealable to CAFC. A rehearing of the PTAB can be requested, but from what I have read, very few have been granted.

In regard to CAFC decisions, because the procedure is relatively new, and the time required to conduct a PTAB review and any subsequent CAFC appeal, a recent article I read stated that only two substantive CAFC decisions on final PTAB decisions had been issued.

In one , dated February 4, 2015, the key points were:

1 that CAFC lacks “jurisdiction to review the PTO’s decision to institute IPR”. (Note: this refers to the six month period that the PTAB has to decide whether to accept the review petition)


2 that the PTO acted within its statutory rule making authority in determining that patent claims subject to an IPR should be given their “broadest reasonable interpretation” and thus that the PTAB’s broad claim construction and subsequent obviousness determination were proper. (Note: this refers to the low standard used by the USPTO in evaluating claims, rather than the higher, stricter standard used by courts)

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/02/04/cafc-affirms-ptab-in-first-inter-partes-review-appeal/id=54464/

In the second, dated June 16,2015, in a ruling against Microsoft, CAFC reversed parts of the PTAB’s decision that had invalidated some of the patents claims at issue. The key part of the CAFC decision was:

“The Court held that even though it does not constitute error to use the "Broadest Reasonable Interpretation" (or BRI) standard for claim construction, it is error to adopt a construction that is "unreasonable," which the Board did for two of the construed claim terms.”

http://www.patentdocs.org/2015/08/microsoft-corporation-v-proxyconn-inc-fed-cir-2015.html