Patent Law Practice Center

Hewlett-Packard Reexamination Request Of Princeton Digital Patent Among Requests Filed Week of 8/8/11

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

Hewlett-Packard has sought reexamination of Princeton Digital’s U.S. Patent No. 4,813,056 for digital signals used in cameras, camcorders, copiers, scanners and various multifunction devices (see ex parte Request No. (7)).  The ‘056 patent, originally owned by General Electric, is the subject of two infringement actions by Princeton in the Eastern District of Texas, against a slew of consumer electronics companies including HP, Ricoh, Kodak, andFujifilm.  Canon is reported this morning to have settled its case.

Garmin has requested reexamination of its own patent for a sports computer with GPS (see ex parte Request No. 6).  Presumably,Garmin is attempting to beat Bryton, whom Garmin has sued for infringement of that patent, to the punch.

Finally, there were reports over the weekend that Google had requested reexamination against two Lodsys patents – U.S. Patent Nos. 7,222,078 & 7,620,565 – that Lodsys has asserted against a large group of small makers of applications for Android®.  Google’s Requests, however, are not yet available. (more…)

Requests for Reexamination of 27 Vesta Medical Patents Among those Filed Week of 8/1/11

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

It was a quiet week on the new reexamination front, except that CareFusion requested reexamination of 27 Vesta Medical patents related to disposal of medical waste.  This does not appear, however, to have been done with hostile intent since Vesta is a subsidiary of CareFusion.

Hostile intent was clearly in evidence, on the other hand, when SAP America requested reexamination of a new Wellogix patent (see inter partes Request No. (1)).  For good measure, on the same day, SAP filed a declaratory judgment action against the same Wellogix patent.

Finally, Reexamination was requested against an Intellectual Ventures patent related to field-programmable gate arrays (see ex parte Request No. (32)).  Last December IV sued Altera and two other companies for infringing on that patent, as well as four other patents.  Since reexamination has now been requested against all five IV patents-in-suit, one or more of the parties might now seek a stay of the litigation pending completion of the reexaminations.  (more…)

Request For Reexamination Of 3M Lithium-Ion Battery Patent Among Those Filed Week Of 7/25/11

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

An unidentified party has sought reexamination of 3M’s U.S. Patent No. 7,078,128 for cathode compositions for lithium-ion batteries (see ex parte Request No. (10)).  The ‘128 patent was the subject of an ITC investigation against Sony and others in 2007, which ended in settlements.  No reexamination has yet been requested against3M’s U.S. Patent No. 6,964,828 that was also in the ITC’s investigation.

In March Google requested reexamination U.S. Patent No. 6,981,040 in response to an infringement allegation by the ‘040 patentee, Personalized User Model (PUM).  Now, Google has requested reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 7,685,276 (see inter partes Request No. 3), the other PUM patent-in-suit.

Requests were also filed against three Hewlett-Packard patents for circuits and switches (see ex parte Request Nos. (11), (12) & (13)). (more…)

YouTube Attacks On Pragmatus’s Media File Storage Patents Among Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 6/6/11

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

Earlier this year, Pragmatus sued Facebook, LinkedIn, Photobucket, and YouTube for infringing three patents for systems for storing media files.   YouTube has now requested reexamination of those patents (see inter parte Request Nos. (6), (8) & (9)).

Apple has requested reexamination of Softview’s U.S. Patent No. 7,831,926 related to systems for “zooming and panning” images from the Internet on mobile devices.  Softview has sued Apple and AT&T Mobility in Delaware for infringing the ‘926 patent.  Softview is also involved in a separate case with HTC in Washington state regarding the ‘926 patent.

IDT requested reexamination of Alexsam’s U.S. Patent No. 6,000,608 which relates to activation of “stored value” card (see ex parte Request No. (3)). In February, Alexsam won a $9.06 million jury verdict against IDT in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of the ‘608 patent and a second patent. (more…)

Challenges To Two MobileMedia Ideas Patents, Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 4/11/11

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

Reexamination was requested for two MobileMedia Ideas patents.  PTO dockets show that RIM filed one of the requests, but are unclear about who filed the second, though that request was quite likely filed by RIM as well (see ex parte Request Nos. (3) & (13)).  MobileMedia has sued RIM for infringement of these patents in the Eastern District of Texas.

A very important request, reported in a parallel post today, is Google’s second request for reexamination of an Oracle patent (see ex parteRequest No. (20)).

Abbott Diabetes Care has requested reexamination of two DexComanalyte sensor patents (see ex parte Request Nos. (8) & (18)).

(more…)