Patent Law Practice Center

Echostar Challenge To Northpoint Set-Top Box Patent Among 24 Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 3/21/11

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

Friday afternoon EchoStar requested reexamination of Northpoint’sU.S. Patent No. 6,208,636 which claims a TV set-top box for processing multiple datastreams.(see ex parte Request No. (19)). Northpoint is suing EchoStar, DirecTV and Dish Network in the Western District of Texas for infringement of the ‘636 patent. According to Northpoint’scomplaint, Dish Network has used the claimed box for 14.1 million direct broadcast satellite subscriptions as of December 2009.

Reexamination was requested against AU Optronics’ U.S. Patent No. 7,125,157 (see inter partes Request No. (4)), probably by Sharp, though the accessible PTO records are not clear.  AU Optronics suedSharp earlier this month in Delaware for infringement of the ‘157 patent, as well as five other patents.

Formax and Prosure requested reexamination of four Patriot Universal Holdings patents related to machines for “molding foodpatties,” presumably hamburgers (see ex parte Request Nos. (6), (7), (8) & (9) – the two companies had been sued by Patriot in Wisconsin for infringement of the patents.  The same day Formax also filed in Wisconsin its own complaint for patent infringement against two additional companies. (more…)