Source: https://www.natlawreview.com/print/article/time-barred-ipr-petitioners-have-separate-standing-to-appeal-ptab-decisions
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:15:17+00:00

Document:
Thus, in cases where an IPR has already been instituted, § 315(c) gives the Director discretion to “join as a party . . . any person who properly files a petition under section 311” (emphasis added). It was by this joinder process that Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Breckenridge Pharmaceuticals, and Alembic Pharmaceuticals became parties to an IPR filed by Argentum Pharmaceuticals against the ’551 reissue patent of Research Corporation Tech. (RCT), despite having been sued for infringement by RCT more than one year earlier.
Mylan, Breckenridge, and Alembic appealed the PTAB’s FWD upholding the validity of the reissued ’551 claims. Agentum did not, due to an apparent lack of Article III standing. With the only non-time-barred petitioner out of the appeal, RCT challenged appellants’ standing as not falling within the “zone of interests of 35 U.S.C. § 319” and attempting an “‘end run around the statutory time-limit for instituting IPR proceedings.’” Mylan, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 3282, at *11 and *14. The Federal Circuit acknowledged that “a statutory cause of action extends only to litigants that ‘fall within the zone of interests protected by the law invoked,’” but that in evaluating this question “we apply traditional principles of statutory interpretation.” Mylan, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 3282, at *12; citing Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 128-129 (2014).
Turning to the statutory scheme, the Federal Circuit pointed out that under the § 315(c) joinder provision, a petitioner is joined “as a party”, and that § 319 provides that “[a]ny party to the inter partes review shall have the right to be a party to the appeal” (emphasis added). Because the statute does not distinguish between “parties,” the Federal Circuit concluded that time-barred petitioners that are properly joined under § 315(c) “fall within the zone of interests of § 319 and are not barred from appellate review.” Mylan, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 3282, at *14.
Takeaway: The decision in Mylan provides an example in which two IPR petitioners, neither of which could have reached the Federal Circuit alone, were able to do so by way of the joinder rules. This case provides a roadmap for time-barred petitioners to enter the IPR process by taking advantage of a decision to institute another petitioner’s IPR.

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