Patent Law Practice Center

Here is the latest installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott Daniels, of Reexamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

Late last year eBay was sued by XPRT for infringement of four patents claiming aspects for automatic auctioneering.  Last week, eBay requested inter partes reexamination of each of those patents (inter partes Request Nos. (2), (3), (4) & (8)).

There was also a race to the PTO.  On Monday Vorsteen Consulting filed a request for ex parte reexamination of its U.S. Patent No. 6,878,358 (that claims a process for removing mercury from flue gases), together with a preliminary amendment narrowing the original claims and adding 33 new claims (see ex parte Request No. (2)). The same day, a third party requested reexamination of the same patent (see inter partes Request No. (1)), presumably presenting a different perspective on the validity issue.

Last week also featured requests for reexamination of a number of medical/biotechnical patents, including commercially significant patents claiming adipose-derived stem cells (inter parte sRequest No.(6) and methods for treating cancer with hyaluronic acid and NSAIDS (ex parteRequest No. 13). (more…)