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…)

VW Challenge to Flexible Car Warning Light Among Reexamination Requests Filed Week of 9/6/11

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

In January, the company Effectively Illuminated Pathways, LLC. sued Aston Martin of North America, Bentley and Volkswagen of America (Bentley’s parent company) for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,520,669 for a flexibly mounted warning light for cars, presumably rather up-scale cars.  VW has now replied to that law suit by requesting reexamination of the ‘669 patent (see inter partes Request No. (1)), the request asserting 92 substantial new questions of patentability and weighing in at 1630 pages counting claim charts.

Cisco requested reexamination of a VirnetX patent (see inter partesRequest No. (10)) in a dispute described in greater detail in our second item posted today.  And SanDisk sought reexamination of a flash memory Netac patent (see inter partes Request No. (11)).

Also of interest last week was the fact that there were 16 inter partes reexamination requests and only 6 ex parte requests.  Normally, the ex parte cases exceed the inter partes.  Perhaps requesters are coming to the conclusion that full participation in the reexamination outweighs the risk of statutory estoppel attaching tointer partes requests. (more…)

Reexamination Request against Wireless Game Controller Patent among those Filed Week of September 20th

Here is this week’s  installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott M. Daniels, of Reeaxamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

The most interesting reexamination request last week was filed against a patent that claims a radio frequency remote game controller and is owned by the Canadian company Eleven Engineering (Ex parte No. 22).  Last November Eleven Engineering and its U.S. subsidiary sued Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft for infringement of that patent and two others.  The accused games are Nintendo’s Wii Remote and Wii Balance Board, Sony’s Playstation3, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.  The case is before Judge Stark in Delaware and has not progressed beyond the pleading stage.

Another notable request was filed by Volkswagen against a car brake safety patent (Inter partes No. 3).  The patent is owned by 55 Brake LLC who sued 12 major automobile companies for infringement of that patent.  The case is in Idaho and a trial is scheduled to begin in March 2011. (more…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of September 13th

Here is this week’s  installment of Reexamination Requests from Scott M. Daniels, of Reeaxamination Alert and Practice Center Contributor….

Perhaps the most important reexamination request last week was filed by Google against a Xerox patent (Ex parte No. 6).  The patent is the subject of a pending law suit in Delaware between the parties.  Earlier this month, Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge issued a decision in that case allowing Google to use counsel from its litigation team for any reexamination – essentially, she concluded that the potential harm to Google of limiting its choice of reexamination counsel outweighed the risk of improper use by Google’s reexamination counsel of Xerox’s protective order information.

Another interesting request was filed against an Amylin patent (Ex parte No. 13) for exendins which are peptide hormones that regulate blood glucose levels.  A reexamination (95/000,276) has been pending since 2007 against similar Amylin extendins patent – the ‘276 reexamination is noteworthy in that it features that rare creature: the reexamination continuation.  The earlier Amylin reexamination was filed by competitor ConjuChem.  (more…)

Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of September 6th

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 week of September 6th….

Last week saw two blockbuster sets of filings – Shared Marketing Services filed ex parte requests against five eComSystems patents (6) to (10), and Illinois Tool Works filed ex parte requests against seven patents belonging to Digi-Star (13) to (19).  Illinois Tool has appeared in many reexaminations over the years.  In both instances, the respective parties are in litigation.

Two other ex parte reexamination requests may prove to be commercially significant, one filed against a Hitachi semiconductor patent (25), and another filed against a Kubota tractor patent (30).  The names of the companies that filed these requests are not apparent from the files.

Finally, information regarding the last of the eight PubPat requests against Abbott, inter partes (8), became available last week. (more…)