Patent Law Practice Center

Novozymes Attack on Patent for Ethanol-Producing Enzyme Composition, Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of February 20, 2012

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

Novozymes A/S, considered the world’s largest maker of industrial enzymes, requested reexamination of the recently-issued U.S. Patent No. 8,048,657 claiming an enzyme composition for making ethanol (see ex parte Request No. (8)).  Danisco, a DuPont subsidiary, owns the patent and is considered the world’s second largest maker of industrial enzymes.  Although there does not appear to be pending infringement action regarding Danisco’s ‘657 patent, one might soon be filed.  Novozymes has successfully suedDanisco for patent infringement, obtaining an $18.3 verdict in the Western District of Wisconsin at the end of October.

The refrigerator war between LG Electronics and Whirlpool opened a new front last week, with LG requesting reexamination of aWhirlpool ice-delivery patent (see ex parte Request No. (2)), andWhirlpool requesting reexamination of an LG icemaker patent (see inter partes Request No. 2)).  The companies have been battling in recent years in several District Court infringement actions and in an ITC investigation. (more…)

Reexamination Requests For the Weeks of October 18th and 25th

Here is the latest  installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott M. Daniels, of Reeaxamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor which includes the requests for the weeks of October 18th and October 25th….

NVIDIA Attack on Rambus Patent Among Requests Filed the Week of October 18^th

In their litigation/reexamination wars, Rambus and NVIDIA often look like two boxers trying to slug each other into submission.  That was true last Wednesday.  The same day that the PTO issued its Notice of Intent to issue a reexamination certificate, confirming the claims of Rambus’ U.S. Patent No. 6,715,020, NVIDIA requested another reexamination (Inter Partes Request No. 2 below).  The ‘020 patent is just one of 17 patents that Rambus has accused NVIDIA of infringing in their case pending in the Central District of California.  Five of those Rambus patents in litigation were the subject of a recently settled ITC investigation.  The ‘020 patent is related to Rambus’ U.S. Patent No. 7,209,997, which is also part of the California litigation and the subject of two pending reexaminations.  NVIDIA is now appealing the reexamination examiner’s decision to confirm the patentability of the ‘997 claims (95/000,471). (more…)

Reexamination Request Against Taser Patent Among Those Filed Week of October 11th

Here is the latest  installment of Reexamination Requests from our friends at Reexamination Alert….

The clear stand-out among the reexamination requests filed last week was one against U.S. Patent No. 6,999,295, the patent for the famous Taser® stun gun, owned by Taser International.  The preamble of one of the ‘295 claims euphemistically recites a “dual operating mode electronic disabling device for immobilizing a target.”  Taser successfully sued Stinger Systems in Arizona for infringement of the ‘295 patent, culminating in an infringement judgment in August.  Taser owns another patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,102,870, claim 3 of which has been held to be invalid as obvious over the prior art.

A request was also filed against Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647 (Ex parte No. 10).  As reported by our friend Gene Quinn in IPWatchdog, Apple has sued HTC and Exeda for infringement of the ‘647 patent, among many other patents. (more…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of June 14th

Here is this weeks  installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott M. Daniels, of Reeaxamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor…

Notable among the requests from last week is a request filed by Mylan against Pfizer for a patent covering Pfizer’s CADUET® blood pressure treatment composition, U.S. Patent No. 6,455,574.  Pfizer sued Mylan earlier this year for infringement of that patent. Also notable are three requests filed by Furuno against Honeywell patents that are the subject of a law suit between the companies.

Reexamination requests are typically reported in the Official Gazette approximately three months after filing. Such a delay in reporting requests, particularly for requests that involve copending District Court litigation, is too long. We therefore report new ex parte and inter partes reexamination requests filed electronically the previous week as they appear on the Patent Office PAIR system.  Information on concurrent litigation is also provided, where available.

Some reexamination requests are still filed by paper.  Because of the time required for the Patent Office to review such paper requests before posting on PAIR, our report may come three weeks after filing.  The information available from the Patent Office may be incomplete in a few cases because not all the reexamination request papers have yet been posted on PAIR.  There may also be gaps in the Patent Office docket numbers listed because, for any of various reasons, a reexamination request has been assigned a docket number but is not ready for posting. (more…)