Patent Law Practice Center

Whirlpool Challenge To Three LG Refrigerator Patents Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 2/28/11

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

Last year LG Electronics sued Whirlpool for selling refrigerators that infringe a series of LG patents.  Whirlpool has now replied by requesting reexamination of those patents (see inter partes Request Nos. (4), (5) & (6)).  Whirlpool has previously requested reexamination of at least four other LG refrigerator patents.  LG and Whirlpool have been in series patent infringement fights, including an ITC investigation.

There were also reexaminations requested by Google against two of the Oracle America patents in the JAVA infringement suit between the companies (see inter partes Request No. (3) and ex parte Request No. (9)).  A request was filed against another of the Intellectual Venturespatents from its case against Altera and other companies, probably by Xilinx, though the identity of the requester does appear in PAIR (see ex parte Request No. (22)).  Finally, a request was filed regarding one of the Ronald Katz telephone patents (see ex parte Request No. (3)). (more…)