Patent Law Practice Center

Google Challenge To Tierravision Geographic Database Patent Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week of 10/31/11

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

Earlier this year Tierravision sued Microsoft, RIM and Google, accusing them of selling Internet-based map services that infringe U.S. Reissue Patent No. 41,983.   Google has now replied by requesting reexamination of the ‘983 patent (see inter partes Request No. (3)). Google’s Request is a bit spicier than most.  At the very outset, it asserts that “Tierravision buried the 18 claims subject to reexamination in a wildly varied set of 70 total claims,” with the result that “[t]hey bear little or no resemblance to the claims of the original patent, yet the original Examiner subjected them to virtually no scrutiny, allowing them in the first action without any explanation.”  It seems likely that RIM and Microsoft will file their own Requests.

Research in Motion has requested reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 6,055,439 owned by MobileMedia Ideas (see ex parte Request No. (14)). The ‘439 patent was originally assigned to Nokia and is one of a portfolio of mobile phone patents assigned by either Nokia or Sony to MobileMedia.   (more…)