Patent Law Practice Center

Federal Circuit says PTAB too narrowly interpreted case law regarding prior art publications in GoPro

On Friday, July 27th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential opinion in GoPro, Inc. v. Contour IP Holdings, vacating a final written decision coming from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that had upheld patent claims in the face of a validity challenge petitioned by action camera company GoPro. The Federal Circuit panel of Circuit Judges Jimmie Reyna (author of the opinion), Evan Wallach and Todd Hughes found that the PTAB had erred in finding that a 2009 GoPro catalog did not qualify as a prior art printed publication for rendering the challenged claims invalid for obviousness.

There are two patents at issue in this case which have now been remanded back to the PTAB for further proceedings:

• U.S. Patent No. 8890954, titled Portable Digital Video Camera Configured for Remote Image Acquisition Control and Viewing. Issued to Contour in November 2014, it covers an integrated, hands-free, portable, wearable, viewfinderless point of view (POV) digital video camera equipped with a wireless Internet protocol and a global navigation and location positioning system.
• U.S. Patent No. 8896694, same title as the ‘954 patent. Also issued to Contour in November 2014, it claims a POV digital video camera system with GPS and Bluetooth capabilities for capturing action video, tracking data such as speed and elevation, as well as posting video online.

Contour IP, the patent owner, first asserted both of these patents against GoPro in a patent infringement suit filed in November 2015 in the District of Delaware; that case was transferred to the Northern District of California in August 2017. However, in April 2015, about six months before the patents were asserted against GoPro in Delaware, GoPro petitioned the PTAB for inter partes review (IPR) proceedings challenging the validity of both patents.

In both IPR petitions, GoPro submitted a 2009 sales catalog as prior art; the catalog disclosed a digital camera linked to a wireless viewfinder/controller that enables a user to preview the image before recording. Although the PTAB instituted both IPRs after making a determination that GoPro made a threshold showing that the catalog is prior art, both IPRs terminated in final written decisions which concluded that the catalog wasn’t disseminated or otherwise made available to the extent that persons ordinarily skilled in the art could have located it by exercising reasonable diligence.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit found that the PTAB erred in determining that a declaration from a GoPro employee, along with corroborating evidence, wasn’t sufficient to establish public accessibility of the catalog. The GoPro employee had testified that GoPro made the catalog accessible during an action sports vehicle trade show that occurred in July 2009, prior to the critical date of September 13th, 2009 (one year prior to the date of priority for both the ‘954 and ‘694 patents). The PTAB held that the dissemination at this trade show did not make the catalog publicly accessible because the trade show was only open to dealers and not the general public.

“The case law regarding accessibility is not as narrow as the Board interprets it,” the Federal Circuit found, noting that the PTAB only focused on one of several factors for determining public accessibility. Although the trade show was focused on action sports vehicles, the attendees were likely more sophisticated in that space than average consumers, making it more than likely that attendees were also skilled and interested in POV action cameras. “A dealer show focused on extreme sports vehicles is an obvious forum for POV action sports cameras,” the Federal Circuit’s opinion reads. The general public may not have been aware of the trade show but the appellate court found that dealers of POV action sports cameras would be part of the relevant audience. Thus, the Federal Circuit vacated the PTAB’s determination that the GoPro catalog was not prior art and remanded the case for further proceedings.

 

En banc Federal Circuit overrules Achates on IPR appealability

Several weeks ago, the Federal Circuit issued an en banc decision in Wi-Fi One, LLC v. Broadcom Corp.

This dispute arose because Congress provided that the Director’s determination “whether to institute an inter partes review under this section shall be final and nonappealable.” Id. § 314(d). Notwithstanding, Congress similarly prohibited the Director from instituting inter partes review if the petition requesting that review is filed more than one year after the petitioner, real party in interest, or privy of the petitioner is served with a complaint for patent infringement. 35 U.S.C. § 315(b).

A panel of the Federal Circuit previously held that a § 315(b) time-bar determination is final and nonappealable under § 314(d). See Achates Reference Publishing, Inc. v. Apple Inc. Therefore, in this en banc appeal, the Federal Circuit had to determine whether the bar on judicial review of institution decisions in § 314(d) applies to time-bar determinations made under § 315(b).

The Federal Circuit reversed Achates, and ruled that time-bar determinations under § 315(b) are appealable.

 

PTAB denies claims of 11th Amendment sovereign immunity

Several weeks ago, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied a motion filed by the University of Minnesota in a series of inter partes review (IPR) cases. See Order Denying Patent Owner’s Motion to Dismiss. This extraordinary denial of the motion is newsworthy because Minnesota sought a dismissal of the IPRs based on Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. The PTAB previously dismissed similar IPRs against state-owned patents. Here, however, the PTAB in a majority opinion authored by Chief Judge David Ruschke (pictured left), disagreed and refused to dismiss the IPRs.

The PTAB ruled that the University of Minnesota “waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity by filing an action in federal court alleging infringement of the patent being challenged in this proceeding.”

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Eli Lilly cancer treatment upheld by PTAB

Several weeks ago, a final written decision issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) upheld a series of 22 claims from a patent owned by Indianapolis-based drugmaker Eli Lilly & Company. This decision ends an inter partes review (IPR), which was initially petitioned by Chicago-based generic pharmaceutical firm Neptune Generics to challenge a patent covering Alimta, a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for patients with advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The Eli Lilly patent challenged by Neptune in the IPR was U.S. Patent No. 7772209, titled Antifolate Combination Therapies. Issued in August 2010, it covers a method for administering pemetrexed disodium to a patient in need thereof by administering effective amounts of folic acid and a methylmalonic acid lowering agent followed by administering an effective amount of pemetrexed disodium; the particular methylmalonic acid lowering agent used by the treatment is vitamin B12. The use of vitamin B12 in the treatment helps to reduce the cytotoxic activity which antifolates can create in a patient’s body when that patient is undergoing chemotherapy, helping to limit the potentially life-threatening toxicity which antifolates can cause in the human body.

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Drug patents fare better at PTAB

While the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has not been friendly to patent owners in general, the PTAB has not been inhospitable to pharma patent owners according to a report issued by BiologicsHQ, a searchable database of drugs, patents, and companies involved in PTAB inter partes review (IPR) proceedings developed by attorneys at Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto. The BiologicsHQ report shows a much different story in terms of drug patents facing IPR challenges at the PTAB. The report looks at a combination of data sources, including the Orange Book, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) listed biologics and statistics on America Invents Act (AIA) trials published by the PTAB. The BiologicsHQ report draws the conclusion that, despite widespread concerns about the PTAB operating as a patent death squad in IPRs, “such concern is not justified for drug patents.”

According to the March 2017 IPR statistics issued by the PTAB, 53 percent of IPRs resolved as of March 31, 2017 were instituted; the rest were either denied institution or reached some other resolution prior to the institution decision. 35 percent of all resolved IPRs resulted in final written decisions and 23 percent led to findings of all claims unpatentable. Only 7 percent of all resolved IPRs led to final written decisions finding that no claim was unpatentable, and 5 percent led to mixed claim findings.

By contrast, drug patents fare better under PTAB scrutiny in terms of having claims upheld. Of the 4,563 resolved IPRs, BiologicsHQ reports that 222 petitions (5 percent) involved patents covering drugs listed in the Orange Book. Focusing on just the IPRs involving Orange Book patents, 44 percent were instituted and 38 percent reached a final written decision, but only 16 percent led to final written decisions where all claims were found unpatentable. No instituted claim was found unpatentable in 50 percent of final written decisions (19 percent of the total number of resolved Orange Book IPRs).

CDER-listed biologic drug patents also survive PTAB challenges better than patents not directed to pharmaceutical drugs, although the number of resolved challenges is quite small by comparison. By March 31, 2017, BiologicsHQ reports that a total of 29 resolved IPR petitions involved patents covering CDER-listed biologics. 41 percent of those petitions were instituted and 28 percent reached final written decisions. 17 percent of all resolved CDER-listed biologic drug IPRs led to final written decisions of all claims unpatentable, and 10 percent led to final written decisions of no claims unpatentable.

When comparing final written decisions among all IPRs, IPRs relating to Orange Book patents, and IPRs relating to CDER-listed biologic drug patents, Orange Book and CDER-listed biologic drug patents are more likely to escape with all claims intact. For all resolved IPRs, 23 percent led to final written decisions of all claims unpatentable. That’s a higher percentage than the 16 percent of Orange Book IPRs, and 17 percent of CDER-listed biologic drug IPRs that led to final written decisions where all claims are unpatentable. The 7 percent of all IPRs that led to final written decisions of no claims unpatentable is less than the 10 percent of CDER-listed biologic drug IPRs, and the 19 percent of Orange Book IPRs, that met the same fate.

Overall, 58 percent of IPRs involving drug patents resolved by the PTAB resulted in some claims remaining patentable: 60 percent for Orange Book IPRs and 45 percent for CDER-listed biologic IPRs.