Patent Law Practice Center

Attack on Lam Research Plasma Processing Patent, Among the Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of Nov. 28, 2011

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

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment has requested reexamination of Lam Research’s U.S. Patent No. 5,998,932 related to plasma processing equipment (see ex parte Request No. (6)). Lam has sued AMFE for infringement of the Taiwanese counter-part patent and might soon sue in the United States for infringement of the ‘932 patent.

Reexamination was also requested for a Xerox patent (see inter partes Request No. (5)), but the identity of the requester is not shown in the PTO records.

 The following inter partes requests were filed: (more…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Weeks of August 16th and 23rd

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 August 16th and August 23rd….

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of August 16^th

Most notable among last week’s requests is one filed by Sprint attacking an EMSAT patent for a cellular telephone system.  EMSAT’s patent is the subject of no less than eight separate law suits.  Let’s not forget Rambus, whose patents are reexamined more often than those of any other company.  Last week the requester was Hynix, not NVIDIA.

The following inter partes requests were made:

(1)  95/001,420 (electronically filed) – U.S. Patent No. 6,163,816 owned by FlashPoint Technology, Inc. and entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RETRIEVING CAPABILITY PARAMETERS IN AN ELECTRONIC IMAGING DEVICE.  Filed August 18, 2010.

(2)  95/000,562 (paper filed) – U.S. Patent No. 7,002,533 entitled DUAL-STAGE HIGH-CONTRAST ELECTRONIC IMAGE DISPLAY.  Filed August 2, 2010 by Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (more…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of July 26th

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

An interesting request this week is one filed by Volkswagen against an Acacia patent that is also the subject of two law suits in the Eastern District of Texas.

To update our article of June 23^rd where we reported requests by Furuno against five Honeywell patents, we note that Furuno has now obtained a stay of the litigation between the two companies involving those patents – the trial judge was not persuaded by Honeywell’s unusual argument that Furuno’s motion, filed six months after Honeywell’s complaint, was “premature.”

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…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of July 19th

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

Of special interest is the request (90/011,109) filed by Hynix against U.S. Patent No. 6,546,446 owned by Rambus.  The ‘446 patent is already the subject of two inter partes reexaminations, initiated by Micron – in both the examiner has indicated the patentability of the claims, and earlier this month Micron filed a notice to appeal to the PTO Board.  The ‘446 patent is also currently the subject of two cases filed by Rambus in the Northern District of California.

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…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of July 12th

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

Notable is a request filed by Medtronic against a patent belonging to Edwards Lifesciences AG for a valve prosthesis.  Also interesting is a request filed by Nalco regarding a Baker Hughes patent – the patent is the subject of an infringement action between the companies that has already featured a preliminary injunction and two trips to the CAFC.

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…)