Patent Law Practice Center

Challenges to Medical Device Patents Prominent Among Reexamination Requests Filed Week of February 6, 2012

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

There has been a notable increase in the number of reexamination requests filed against medical device patents.  That trend continued apace last week.

First, Innova Labs requested reexamination of two Inogen patents claiming structures for delivering therapeutic gases to patients (see inter partes Request Nos. (3) & (4)).  Inogen has sued Innova in the Central District of California for infringement of the patents.  Also, Globus Medical requested reexamination of three surgical access apparatus patents owned by Nuvasive (see inter partes Request Nos. (6), (7) & (8)).  Those companies are locked in an infringement action in Delaware.

And reexamination was requested for yet another Round Rock Research RFID patent and yet another Ronald Katz telephone patent (see ex parte Request Nos. (3) & (5)). (more…)

HTC Attack on FlashPoint Image Capture Patent Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of Jan 9th

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

HTC has requested reexamination of FlashPoint Technology’s U.S. Patent No. 6,278,447 for video interface system (see ex parte Request No. (9)).  The ‘447 patent has survived two earlier ex parte reexaminations without cancelation or amendment of claims.

Reexamination was requested of another MobileMedia Ideas patent for data storage, U.S. Patent No. 5,977,887 (see ex parteRequest No. (2)).  The PTO records do not indicate the identity of the requester, but it might be HTC. (more…)

Attacks on Two MobileMedia Ideas Patents for Communication Devices, Among the Reexamination Requests Filed Week of Jan. 2nd

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

Reexamination was requested of two communications device patents owned by MobileMedia Ideas (see ex parte Request Nos. (2) & (3)).  MobileMedia, that describes itself as “patent portfolio licensor of inventions adopted by manufacturers of smart phones, mobile phones and other portable devices including personal computers, laptops, netbooks, personal media players, e-book readers, cameras and hand-held game consoles,” obtained one of the patents from Sony and the other from Nokia.  MobileMedia has sued HTC in the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of the two patents, plus nine other patents.  What stake if any Sony or Nokia has in the litigation is unknown.  It is not immediately clear who filed the requests, but it is likely HTC.

CBS Interactive requested reexamination of a paging system patent owned by Helferich Patent Licensing (see inter partesRequest No. (2)).  Helferich had sued CBS and a number of other media companies in Illinois and Arizona for infringement. CBS had requested reexamination of another Helferich patent at the end of December.  (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…)