Patent Law Practice Center

Reexamination Requests Filed Weeks of 5/16/11 And 5/23/11

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

Apple Attack On MONKEYmedia Audiovisual Patent, Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of May 16, 2011

Last December, Apple defended itself against MONKEYmedia’s patent infringement allegations in the Western District of Texas, by requesting reexamination of two of MM’s streaming media patents-in-suit.  Applehas now sought reexamination of a third MM patent-in-suit (see inter partes Request No. (10)).

Reexamination was also requested by Xilinx for a circuits patent owned by Intellectual Ventures, but it is not clear from the PTO files whether the IV patent is the subject of any infringement litigation (see inter partes Request No. (8)).

And SemiLEDs Corporation has requested reexamination of a Group III nitride LED patent owned by Cree (see inter partes Request No. (7)). The companies are currently in litigation in the Middle District of North Carolina over that patent and four others. (more…)

Auburn V. IBM Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of March 14, 2011

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

Auburn v. IBM is not a “sweet-sixteen” match-up.  It’s an infringement litigation pending in the District Court in Alabama since 2009.  IBM has now requested reexamination of Auburn’s patents – U.S. Patent Nos. 7,194,366 & 7,409,306, both claiming ways of estimating the reliability of integrated circuits and thereby reducing the cost of making chips (see inter partes Request Nos. (2) & (3)).

Xilinx continued its assault on Intellectual Ventures’ patents – this week requesting reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 7,080,301 (see inter partes Request No. (7)), and perhaps U.S. Patent Nos. 6,065,880 and 6,687,865 (see ex parte Request Nos. (16) & (18)). The PTO records are, as yet, unclear regarding the requester of the latter two requests, but it appears to have been Xilinx.

Apple, the clear leader in recent times in the number of requests filed, continued its practice of seeking reexamination of each patent-in-suit whenever it is sued (see ex parte Request Nos. (10), (11) & (13)).  Other noteworthy requests include those filed against Lincoln Globaland 3M patents (see inter partes Request Nos. (1) & (11) and ex parteRequest No.(1)). (more…)

Toshiba Attack On Two Rovi V-Chip Patents Among Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 3/7/11

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

Late last year, Rovi sued Toshiba, alleging that it infringes two patents covering V-Chip technology, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,305,016 and 6,701,523.  Toshiba has now replied to that allegation by requesting reexamination of both Rovi patents (see ex parte Request Nos. (16) & (17)).

The winner for the most reexaminations requested was TiVo who filed requests against seven Microsoft TV programming patents (see ex parteRequest Nos. (3) to (9)).

Finally, Xilinx’s assault on Intellectual Venture patents continued last week with requests filed against IV’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,993,669 and 6,408,415 (see inter partes Request No. (3) & ex parte Request No. (31)). (more…)

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…)

Challenges To Two More Intellectual Venture Patents, Among The Reexamination Requests Filed Week Of 2/21/11

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

Last week Xilinx requested reexamination of one of the five patents that Intellectual Ventures has accused Xilinx and three other companies of infringing (here).  The same lawyer who filed that request for Xilinx has now requested reexamination of a second Intellectual Ventures patent – U.S. Patent No. 5,687,325 – from the same case, as well of a third Intellectual Ventures patent not in the case, U.S. Patent No. 6,252,527 (see ex parte Request Nos. (8) & (9)).  Since the requests are for ex parte, not inter partes, reexamination, the identity of the real party in interest need not be disclosed.

In August EVM Systems sued Cordis, Boston Scientific and Abbott for infringement of two patents related to stents having a “slotted memory metal tube,” U.S. Patent Nos. 6,780,175 and 7,037,321.  Last week, Cordis requested reexamination of the ‘175 patent and Abbott requested reexamination of the ‘321 patent (see inter partesreexamination Request No. (5) and ex parte Request No. (15)). Although inter partes reexamination was possible for both patents, lawyers for Abbott chose ex parte reexamination. The choice between ex parte and inter partes reexamination is sometimes complex and one addressed in a recent post (here). (more…)