Source: https://www.betweentheparties.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:34:05+00:00

Document:
“Sur-replies to principal briefs (i.e., to a reply to a patent owner response or to a reply to an opposition to a motion to amend) normally will be authorized by the scheduling order entered at institution.” TPG, p. 14.
The new rule permits sur-replies to principal briefs as a matter of right, newly allowing patent owners to have the last word in the briefing, in the form of a Sur-reply to Petitioner’s Reply. Previously, patent owners’ only substantive response opportunity after a petitioner’s reply was to file observations on cross-examination testimony.
The change notes that sur-replies may not be accompanied by new evidence (deposition transcripts of the cross-examination are allowed, as they would have been via observations on cross-examination). The sur-reply also should only be responsive to arguments made in the corresponding reply brief or the corresponding declaration testimony. Finally, the institution decision can be addressed by the patent owner in its sur-reply, so long as it is responsive to the petitioner’s reply.
Sur-replies that are not to a “principal brief” continue to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Other new substantive rule changes include a new provision for a pre-hearing conference call among the parties and details about lie testimony and sur-rebuttal scope during oral hearings. In addition, the new rules provide clarification on word and page counts, guidance on expert testimony, instituting decision considerations (under §§ 314(a), 324(a) and 325(d)), and clarification on the distinction between motions to exclude and motions to strike.
The full text of the Trial Practice Guide Update can be found on the USPTO’s website.
The recent decision in SAS Institute v. Iancu — in combination with the proposed shift from a broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) standard to the Phillips standard for claim construction used in district court — moves trials at the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board toward being the most likely forum for first consideration of claim construction and patent validity, and perhaps a shift toward becoming a truer “alternative” to litigation, as Congress envisioned under the America Invents Act.
In the first five years since PTAB trials went into effect, the result has been an increase in PTAB trials running concurrently with district court litigation pertaining to the same patent. Indeed, since the inception of PTAB trials, a majority of cases have had co-pending litigation.
The decision, rendered by an “expanded” panel including Chief Judge David P. Ruschke, is significant both procedurally — because the decision was rendered by an expanded panel — and substantively — because it provided greater clarity to all parties in an area of PTAB trials processes that had previously been somewhat inconsistent, and recently was designated “precedential,” a rare status indicating it is binding on future PTAB decisions unless replaced or undone.
To date, less than half of follow-on petitions have been instituted, showing the PTAB’s reservations about them. However, there was great disparity in the prior PTAB decisions on this topic, including whether all seven factors laid out in NVIDIA v. Samsung Electronics were addressed. The varied outcomes led commentators and practitioners alike to wonder whether initiation of a given follow-on petition was dependent on the particular panel drawn by petitioner.
Thus, the decision to render the decision via an expanded panel and label the case as precedential likely represents a recognition of the inconsistency of the PTAB decisions in follow-on petitions, and stands as a statement that the analysis in the General Plastic decision should be followed by the PTAB on a going-forward basis.
The recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision in General Plastic Industrial v. Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (PTAB September 6, 2017; Paper 19) has caused many commentators to note that patent owners should be pleased with the decision as favorable to them. Indeed, the PTAB articulated that “multiple, staggered petition filings, such as those here, are an inefficient use of the inter partes review process and the Board’s resources.” However, historically less than 50% of follow-on petitions by the same petitioner have been instituted. Therefore, it’s not clear that the decision in General Plastic will effect much of a change in the already-low institution rate of follow-on petitions. The language used by the expanded panel that “there is no per se rule precluding the filing of follow-on petitions” and that “there may be circumstances where multiple petitions by the same petitioner against the same claims of a patent should be permitted” indicate that the institution of such “follow-on” petitions should be considered exceptional.
For petitioners seeking to file follow-on petitions, however, the General Plastic decision provides guidance as to what may be considered such exceptional circumstances, by providing hints for how to maximize the chances of having a second petition instituted.
As we mark the fifth anniversary of the effective date of Patent Trial and Appeal Board trials on September 16, we find that the early years of the practice have been a learning experience both for the PTAB and for PTAB practitioners.
The PTAB had some initial growing pains when the new procedures began, with the number of petitions received far exceeding the number expected. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requested and received much feedback via public comment, instituted rule changes, and has had its procedures and trial outcomes tested in both the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
Likewise, PTAB practitioners have had to evolve along with the PTAB changes, as they familiarized themselves with the procedures for this new variety of “specialized agency proceeding” within the USPTO, as it was described in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee, 579 U.S. ____ (2016). PTAB practitioners have had to adapt to the rule changes and court decisions and learn through their own experiences in PTAB trials and guidance provided by the Administrative Patent Judges presiding over the cases.
Reflecting on the past five years, three key lessons emerge for practitioners, from practice and directly from the APJs presiding over these cases when they have spoken on topic: Follow the rules, including those that are explicit and those that are unspoken, know your audience, and focus on the facts.
Judge Sue L. Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware recently identified a logical fallacy in the “statutory estoppel” jurisprudence with respect to 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1).
According to the statute, a petitioner of an IPR that results in a final decision will be estopped from asserting invalidity in a civil action based on “any ground that the petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised during that inter partes review.” 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2).
In the recent case of Intellectual Ventures v. Toshiba, Judge Robinson noted that “the Federal Circuit has construed the language quite literally” in the use of the word “during.” The term is spelled out as “any ground that the petitioner raised or reasonable could have raised during that inter partes review” in § 315(e)(1). The judge noted that while extending the logic of non-instituted grounds as not being able to be raised “during” an IPR proceeding to prior art references that were never presented to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at all “confounds the very nature of this parallel administrative proceeding, the court cannot divine a way around the Federal Circuit’s interpretation in Shaw.” Thus, she did not estop Toshiba from presenting the grounds never presented to the PTAB in a pair of orders in December and January, and heavily implied that the Federal Circuit should weigh in to clarify the issue.
The rationale for excluding non-instituted grounds from estoppel in litigation is that the non-instituted grounds were present only in the “preliminary proceeding” (the IPR petition), but did not become part of the “proceeding” (the instituted IPR) — to borrow the terms from Apotex — and “[a]ny claim or issue not included in the authorization for review is not part of the review” (77 Fed. Reg. 48,680, 48,689 (Aug. 14, 2012)). Apotex held that non-instituted grounds were not those that “reasonably could have been raised” because once denied they were prevented from being raised during the trial.
If grounds not included in the authorization for review are not part of the review, one must ask how prior art references never presented to the PTAB at all could qualify as those that a petitioner “reasonably could have raised during [the] inter partes review” under § 315(e)(1)?
One rationale inconsistently interprets “during” as post-institution for application to non-instituted grounds (excluded because not “during” the IPR), but as pre-institution for grounds that were not asserted but “could have been” included in the petition (a pre-institution “preliminary proceeding”). Alternatively, one could follow a different rationale, that the ground “could have been raised” in a hypothetical petition (1) in which the petitioner asserted a ground including the prior art reference(s) never presented to the PTAB, and (2) based on which references the PTAB hypothetically instituted an IPR. Both of these rationales are illogical.
This issue is one to watch for petitioners and patent owners alike. If petitioners are only estopped from raising those grounds that were actually raised, the scope of estoppel is very narrow and more accused infringers will want to file IPRs. However, if “reasonably could have raised” means some broader pool of art, the estoppel could be much broader and IPRs less favorable to petitioners as a result.
During the first three years of implementing the America Invents Act (AIA), Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision-making created a perception that a patent owner’s ability to amend claims during a post-grant proceeding was limited, at best. In 2015, legislative activity began to address this perceived problem with draft amendments to the patent statute.
In the most recent action in Depomed, Inc. v. Purdue Pharma LP, a patent infringement case involving pain reliever OxyContin, Purdue Pharma asked the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to confirm that certain of the defenses it raised under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 remained after a decision in the inter partes review (IPR) proceedings pertaining to the same patent. Depomed offered several theories to prevent Purdue from pursuing the various infringement defenses it had raised.
First, the court denied Depomed’s theory of statutory estoppel. Depomed had argued that Purdue could have raised these defenses in the IPR, arguing that the current on-sale bar issue related to the MS Contin® product could have been argued in the IPR based on documentation about the MS Contin® product.
The court also declined Depomed’s argument that Purdue adopted its position in bad faith. The court noted that throughout the case Purdue had argued that a stay pending the IPR matter would streamline the invalidity issues in the litigation matter.
Finally the court denied Depomed’s theory of judicial estoppel due to statements Purdue made in an effort to obtain the stay pending the IPR. While noting that the court appreciated Depomed’s frustration at having to litigate issues already presented to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), it could not “ignore the fact that the Federal Circuit has determined that it is appropriate to do so.” The court noted that the IPR proceedings reduced the number of defenses and references that remained available to Purdue in the litigation matter.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 315
 § 315
 v. 
 § 315
 § 315
 v.