Source: https://www.ipo.org/index.php/ip-chat-channel/ip-chat-channel-federal-circuit-and-other-appellate-decisions/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:43:29+00:00

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The case law regarding extraterritorial liability for patent infringement is extraordinarily complicated ‒ and evolving.
Last year the Supreme Court decided WesternGeco v. ION, widening the scope of 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) by holding that once a domestic act of infringement has been proven under § 271(f)(2), damages resulting from the infringement may be recoverable regardless of where they occur in the world.
This month the Supreme Court asked for the views of the Solicitor General regarding the cert. petition in Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions v. Renesas Electronics America. That case challenges the holding in TransOcean v. Maersk, a 2010 Federal Circuit opinion that found an offer to sell was “within the United States,” even though negotiation and execution of the contract took place abroad, when the two contracting entities were U.S. companies and delivery was to be in the U.S.
This timely program will analyze the case law, and the resulting changes in PTAB practice, since the Federal Circuit’s July decision in Applications in Internet Time (AIT) v. RPX. That appeal from a PTAB inter partes review decision found that the PTAB took an “impermissibly shallow” look at evidence presented by the patent owner about the relationship between the petitioner and another party.
Subsequent related decisions have included two significant Federal Circuit opinions — Worlds Inc. v. Bungie, Inc. and Western Geco v. ION — as well as numerous relevant decisions by the PTAB, such as the denial of a petition in Arris v. ChanBond and Sirius XM Radio, Inc. v. Fraunhofer­Gesellschaft, and the granting of additional discovery in Kashiv v. Purdue.
In the early days of appeals to the Federal Circuit of post-grant trials under the AIA, it usually seemed quixotic to hope that effective lawyering could reverse on appeal a PTAB decision to invalidate a patent. Now, the Federal Circuit’s affirmance rate for PTAB appeals hovers at around 70%, so the success of the PTAB petitioner’s appellate counsel is no longer so nearly universal.
AIA Estoppel: A New Flavor of Collateral Estoppel And/Or Res Judicata?
What is the likely impact of AIA estoppel at the PTAB and in the district courts?
Is Shaw still alive after SAS?
What’s the likely impact of SAS on the scope of estoppel?
How does the Maxlinear decision change the potential scope of estoppel?
How should the terms “skilled searcher,” “diligent search,” and “reasonably could have been expected to discover” be interpreted for estoppel purposes?
When and how should the estoppel defense be raised at the PTAB? In a district court?
Herbert Hart, McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.
The August release of revisions to the PTAB Trial Practice Guide is of major importance to both patent owners and petitioners. Our program features Lead Chief Administrative Patent Judge Michael Tierney, who continues to play a leading role in devising the rules for proceedings under the AIA, in a discussion with two top PTAB litigators. This revision is the first major update of the Guide since its publication in August 2012.
This webinar features the Chief Judge of the PTAB in conversation with two top litigators — one a leading practitioner at the PTAB and the other a preeminent advocate at the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court — to discuss the path ahead after the recent host of major developments that will affect PTAB practice.
Topping the list of changes are those forced by the Supreme Court in its SAS decision this April. Changing some of the basic ground rules of AIA trials, SAS holds that that the PTAB must decide the validity of every challenged patent claim when it agrees to institute an AIA review. It can no longer pick and choose the claims regarding which it will issue a Final Written Decision.
Then, earlier this month the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proposed a new rule that would change the claim construction standard used in America Invents Act (AIA) reviews. Under the proposal, the PTAB would no longer use the broadest reasonable interpretation standard to interpret the patent claims in an AIA review, replacing it with the standard used by federal courts and the U.S. International Trade Commission.
impact of Federal Circuit decisions on PTAB practice. And panelists will discuss how to try to convince the PTAB to change its mind about invalidating a patent on remand, which occurs about 40 percent of the time.
SAS Institute v Iancu was by far the less highly anticipated of two important Supreme Court decisions on AIA proceedings that issued in late April. The justices rejected the opportunity to declare AIA trials unconstitutional in Oil States — and now it turns out that SAS, without advance fanfare, will have a very major impact on PTAB trials, as well as on appeals to the Federal Circuit and parallel district court litigation.
The implementation decisions that have already been decided and announced by the PTAB.
How should strategy change for challengers considering filing a fresh petition for an IPR and for the patent owner in its preliminary response and throughout the trial?
With respect to hundreds of appeals from the PTAB that are now pending at the Federal Circuit that were instituted on only a subset of the petitioner’s challenged claims: Should petitioners file a motion to vacate the appeal and remand the case back to the PTAB? What are the Federal Circuit’s options?
What will be the impact on parallel district court litigation, the district court’s decision to stay the case pending the PTAB Final Written Decision, and on estoppel of challenged claims?
Infringement litigation over biosimilars and pharmaceuticals poses its own knotty jurisdictional and venue issues due to the unique frameworks of the BPCIA and Hatch-Waxman.
These issues are particularly hot right now, with several disputes pending that could have a wide impact going forward, such as Momenta Pharmaceuticals v. Bristol-Myers Squibb. Further, after the Supreme Court’s TC Heartland decision, judges must decide where the artificial act of infringement occurs —and district courts are already split.
Whether a biosimilar applicant will be able to bring BPCIA litigation before the brand sponsor brings its own suit.
Will a biosimilar maker who has not yet filed its marketing application with the FDA be able to appeal an unsuccessful inter partes review? Or does it need Article III standing to seek an appeal?
The complicated calculus regarding venue in both Hatch-Waxman litigation and BPCIA litigation.
Issues when there are multiple defendants in different jurisdictions.
How to deal with foreign defendants.
In the years since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Alice and Mayo, courts and litigants have reached inconsistent conclusions about the substance of judicial exceptions to patent eligibility. But, since the beginning of 2018, the focus has rapidly shifted to procedure, specifically about the nature and timing of factual inquiry in litigation.
U.S. hangs in the balance, given the view of many experts that the Supreme Court is not eager to revisit these issues at present.
How to best leverage these decisions to your advantage.
What you need to know about how to handle issues that could arise on appeal.
Who is likely to decide patent eligibility issues going forward, using what evidence, and at what stage of litigation?
What model will prevail: Making the factual decision at trial or a Markman hearing-type model disposing of patent eligibility before trial?
How does the analogy to obviousness determinations hold up?
PTAB After Wi-Fi One: What's Next for Appeals?
Defining the prerogatives of the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board under the America Invents Act is one of the great unfinished tasks in U.S. patent law.
The en banc Federal Circuit made an important contribution to that effort in January, ruling in Wi-Fi One LLC v. Broadcom Corp. that PTAB time-bar determinations under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) are appealable because they do not fall within the scope of the judicial-review prohibition of § 314(d). This overruled an earlier panel decision in Achates v. Apple.
Our panel includes a Lead Administrative Patent Judge on the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board who has helped develop devise the rules for proceedings under the AIA, a former PTAB Administrative Judge now in private practice, an IP Counsel with Ford Global Technologies LLC who oversees its PTAB docket, and litigator who practices both at the PTAB and before U.S. district courts.
The AIA’s various time bars as adjudicated by the PTAB – and whether there is a standing inconsistency among PTAB panels.
On which other issues are litigants likely to press for appeals such as the naming of all interested parties, or the reach of estoppel.
Real-party-in-interest and privacy, because in practice many potential appeals involve situations with various parties including joint defense groups, indemnification, and patent aggregators.
How will the PTAB respond to increased demands for discovery?
The 2015 en banc Federal Circuit opinion in Akamai V refined divided infringement, but left room for further judicial fine tuning. One such shift took place last December, in a Federal Circuit panel decision, Tropp v. Travel Sentry. That opinion considered when multiple parties can be found to have infringed a patent together —- and it could lead to greater liability for joint infringement. It also likely means such decisions will have to be made by jurors, not judges. Another 2017 earlier Federal Circuit opinion, Lilly v. Teva, addressed divided infringement in the context of the pharmaceutical industry for the first time.
Our panel includes the winning appellate attorney for the inventor/plaintiff in Tropp, who will discuss how the new opinion fits into the framework created by Akamai V., an attorney who manages litigation for a high tech company, and a litigator who won summary judgment for a defendant in an Eastern District of Texas case involving divided infringement . They will consider recent federal district court decisions involving divided infringement, including Sonrai Sys. v. AMCS Group., PersonalWeb Techs v. IBM, and Progme Corp. v. Comcast Cable, and discuss how the outcomes for similar fact patterns might be different in light of Tropp.
The oral argument in Oil States might not take place for months, but conversations about the case already enliven the offices of IP practitioners both in-house and at law firms. If the U.S. Supreme Court decides that AIA post-grant proceedings are unconstitutional, some think a period of chaos will follow, throwing into doubt, for instance, the status of the more than 1,300 patent claims the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has already canceled. In addition to vast practical implications, the case also will force contemporary answers to legal and philosophical questions about patents that somehow need to be adjudicated despite hundreds of years of U.S. case law: are patents private property that can only be invalidated by an Article III court? Or are they a public right closely entwined with a federal agency, thus giving the agency the power to revoke?
Our panel will offer a uniquely informed and balanced discussion of the case. It includes a patent professor who is strongly identified through his writing and research with the argument that patents are private rights; a top Supreme Court litigator who recently argued on behalf of an IPR petitioner in a recent petition for cert. (that was denied) that the validity of a patent concerns a public right that can be cancelled by the agency that erroneously granted the patent; and an appellate lawyer who argued a 2011 Supreme Court case, Stern v. Marshall, that concerned the constitutionality of adjudicating matters outside of Article III courts and resulted in a major disruption of bankruptcy courts.
Is Heartland an “intervening change in law” that allows defendants to revive a venue challenge? Does it matter how far their cases have progressed? One panel of the Federal Circuit, split 2-1, has already refused to grant mandamus to defendants who argued that a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia had abused discretion in refusing to move a close-to-trial case. But few expect that to be the Federal Circuit’s last word on the issue.
What will be the new rules for proper venue that accord with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of section 1400(b)? Most notably, what constitutes “a regular and established place of business”? In late June, Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas, who oversees the largest docket of patent cases in the U.S., laid out a four-factor test in Raytheon v. Cray. Our panel will examine the influence Judge Gilstrap’s permissive test is already having. Cray’s writ of mandamus is pending before the Federal Circuit asking for an immediate reversal of Judge Gilstrap’s decision denying its motion to transfer. Judge Gilstrap has stayed the case and the mandamus request is still pending. Our panel will discuss the Federal Circuit’s immediate and longer-term options.
The year-old federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) expressly disavows the doctrine of “inevitable disclosure” in the context of injunctive relief. But trade secrets litigators now have an indication how that doctrine — under which a former employer can prove that a defendant’s new employment will inevitably lead him or her to rely on the former employer’s secret — will play out more generally under the DTSA.
In May, in Molon v. Nidec in the Northern District of Illinois, a federal district court for the first time considered inevitable disclosure under the DTSA, letting it survive a motion to dismiss in the context of pleading. Our panelists, two experienced trade secret litigators and an in-house counsel, will discuss the future of inevitable disclosure and the related notion of “threatened misappropriation” under the DTSA, and how that will relate to the long-standing patchwork of state laws on the issue.
They also will consider more generally the risks involved in hiring an employee from a competitor and how to mitigate them. Recent highly-publicized trade secrets cases in competitive industries illustrate the dangers of situations in which the best new employee, the one with the most relevant experience, worked for a competitor. The new employer can take steps, starting with job advertising and recruitment, that show sensitivity to the danger of leaning on the new employee’s “relevant experience” — if that means projects and products — from the former employer.
It has been three years since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Octane Fitness made it easier for parties in patent litigation to recover attorney fees. Today, battles over fees are no longer rare; litigants request fees more frequently, and judges grant those requests at a higher rate.
What are the routes to collecting fees from a non-practicing entity that is using a corporate veil to shield assets?
Developers for biosimilars face not only stiff technical and manufacturing challenges, but also legal uncertainty regarding the enabling legal framework, the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) of 2010. Two of those questions — regarding the availability of a federal injunction to compel information disclosure and the timing of the biosimilar maker’s notice of marketing — were answered in last month’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion on two cases between Amgen and Sandoz.
Will the “patent dance” be essentially mandatory under state law? Will availability of an injunction vary by state, perhaps triggering important venue issues?
When would a biosimilar maker choose the patent dance even if it is not mandatory?
How soon can a biosimilar manufacturer give notice of commercial marketing? Can it be done before filing for FDA approval?
New cases: the renewed emphasis on the second prong of Section 1400 — “where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business” — now that the first prong (where the defendant “resides”) is limited by Heartland to the defendant’s place of incorporation. This will include a review of the frequent legal fights over venue that took place in the decades between the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Fourco (1957) and the Federal Circuit’s now-discredited liberalization of venue in VE Holding (1990).
This webinar will consider the spectrum of views district courts have embraced regarding the pleading standard for direct infringement since the abrogation of Form 18 in late 2015, and offer strategies for both plaintiffs and defendants.
Plaintiffs filing under the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure must meet the pleading standard articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Different courts must have ruled differently on what that means in practice, with decisions varying case-to-case according to the patent and product, and from lenient to very strict. At one extreme, one district judge has held that a Form 18-style pleading was sufficient to meet current standards, while at the other end of the spectrum, a court has required the plaintiff to allege facts showing infringement of every asserted claim.
Our panelists will analyze the new challenges, such as defendants’ need to reply to a detailed complaint with little time to prepare affirmative defenses, such as invalidity. The panelists will also discuss how the Federal Circuit has addressed the new pleading standard in Lyda v. CBS, and whether more definitive guidance is likely to be forthcoming.
IPR Estoppel in District Court: How Wide?
But in Intellectual Ventures v. Toshiba late last year, a district court also refused to apply estoppel to “references that were never presented at all.” It is not clear at present whether the Federal Circuit will confirm that view, or if it will feel obliged to define the boundaries of prior art that “reasonably could have been raised” as in Section 315. Today, an uncomfortable stasis holds: District courts are interpreting Shaw to apply Section 315(e)(2) one way, while the PTAB interprets nearly identical language in Section 315(e)(1) in a different way that broadens IPR estoppel. Our panel will analyze the situation for both patent owners and petitioners, and offer tactics on how both can best navigate the legal uncertainties.
Companies in many industries are acutely interested in how the new legal standard is developing, and there are now signposts. Earlier this year, the Federal Circuit affirmed a finding of divided infringement in Eli Lilly v. Teva Parenteral. Underlining the broad impact of Akamai, a case that involved software and the Internet, this case involved a method of medical treatment. The Federal Circuit has also ruled for the defendant in two other cases, refusing to remand a case back to the district court because the new standard would not change the outcome and find the pleading of divided infringement too vague. Several district courts have also recently rendered decisions on divided infringement.
Our panel will describe and analyze how courts are applying Akamai.
It has been more than six months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Halo decision lowered the bar for proving willful infringement, and this boon for plaintiffs is quickly changing trial strategy. Our panel of experienced litigators will begin by examining how courts post-Halo have decided the sufficiency of pleading for enhanced damages at the motion-to-dismiss stage. Then, the panel will consider the factors that have most strongly influenced recent district court decision to enhance — or not enhance — damages, including notice by the patent owner (cases such as CH20 and Finjan), copying (Westerbeke, Imperium, and PPC), and opinions of counsel (Dominion, Presidio, and Boston University). A favorably timed opinion of counsel can prove successful in warding off a finding of willfulness, but defendants need to consider the effect of an opinion of counsel on attorney-client privilege.
This program will consider likely and suggested moves for plaintiffs and defendants over the next months while litigants wait for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in TC Heartland. If the justices decide to overturn the Federal Circuit’s liberal stance toward venue, it could well reshape patent litigation, curtailing the number of cases that can be filed in the Eastern District of Texas, the leading beneficiary of forum-shopping. Last year, EDTX received more case filings than the next four U.S. court districts combined, and that number is likely to fall if venue is restricted to where the defendant is incorporated or has a place of business.
Will there be a surge of complaints filed in EDTX before June?
What new plaintiff strategies might emerge in EDTX or elsewhere, such as an uptick in cases against customers or distributors? Will this lead to more use of MDL in patent cases?
The definition of “a place of business” has not mattered for decades, but it could in the future. Is a sales representative enough to establish venue? Do you need an inventory of products?
What will happen to cases pending in EDTX if the Supreme Court changes the law? Will it matter at what stage the litigation is pending?
What will be the retroactive time window for appealing an EDTX decision or judgment if the law changes?
Several interesting recent decisions at the PTAB exhibit a “man bites dog” pattern in which the patent owner has succeeded in disqualifying the petitioner’s evidence of prior art, and saved patent claims as a result. These decisions reflect the limited discovery allowed by the PTAB to meet its tight deadlines. Although ambiguity about prior art might be resolved in discovery at district court, the PTAB generally requires evidence of prior art to be meticulously substantiated in the petition for an AIA review.
These cases, including Blue Calypso v. Groupon and GoPro v. Contour IP, expand the edges of existing case law on the use of Internet-based and printed prior art regarding public accessibility to those skilled in the art. Moreover, in a recent post-grant review (PGR) Altaire Pharmaceuticals v. Paragon Bioteck, the first time the PTAB upheld a patent in a PGR, the patent survived because the petitioner failed to prove that the claims were invalid due to public use or on-sale activity. Altaire asserted that earlier sales of its own eye solution product had made Paragon’s invention obvious, but failed to conform to PTAB rules about experimental testing.
Patent owner estoppel following an adverse judgment.
Whether to file an appeal if you lose.
The early October en banc decision in a smartphone patent dispute between Apple and Samsung has revealed a startling disagreement on the Federal Circuit about obviousness – a concept viewed by many experts as the central issue in patent law. Judge Dyk, a member of the original three-judge panel that was overruled by the eight-judges majority, said in a dissent that the majority opinion created “profound changes in the law of obviousness” by turning the legal question into a factual one, contrary to KSR. The majority, in contrast, insisted their opinion involved simply “apply[ing] the existing obviousness to the facts of this case.” The majority and the original panel disagree in this case about what weight to give the jury verdict of non-obviousness. While the original panel found little to support the jury’s finding, the majority found that there was the “substantial evidence” required by law, and that the appellate court needed to show the appropriate deference.
Our panel will discuss the likely impact of this case, as well as of the recent Federal Circuit opinion in Arendi v. Apple, where the court overruled the PTAB invalidation of of Arendi’s patents, stressing that “common sense” critiques of an invention must be supported by substantial evidence and explained with sufficient reasoning. Lessons will also be drawn from the recent PTAB decision Innopharma v. Senju Pharmceutical, where after institution the patentee was able to prove to the PTAB both unexpected technical effects and the nexus between those technical effects and commercial success.
Our panel of litigators, all of whom have argued recent Section 101 cases before the Federal Circuit, will give advice on how to maximize clients’ chances in this confusing environment, including the timing and scope of district court motions to challenge claims under Section 101.
John Lahad, Susman Godfrey L.L.P.
Our panel will discuss the latest news and tactics regarding the complex interaction between post-grant proceedings at the PTAB and related district court actions. A substantial number of asserted patents are involved in such parallel proceedings.
The panelists will consider the high-stakes race to the courthouse in parallel proceedings. The law gives little guidance what happens when there is a conflict between decisions by the PTAB and by federal courts on patent validity. In May, for instance, a Texas federal judge ordered Ion Geophysical to pay $21 million to Schlumberger in a patent infringement case, despite a ruling from the PTAB invalidating the underlying patent claims. “The PTAB’s final written decisions are currently no more than nonfinal agency determinations, subject to appeal,” the judge wrote. But in Fresenius v. Baxter (2013), the Federal Circuit decided that a USPTO reexamination decision invalidating a patent trumps prior decisions by both the District Court and the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit reasoned that the earlier validity decisions did not count for res judicata purposes because it did not conclude the case as a whole. The Federal Circuit was sharply divided in its Fresenius decision and declined to reconsider the holding en banc in a divided opinion, raising questions about whether a differently composed panel will reach the same outcome.
The panel will consider a spectrum of district court decisions regarding the admissibility of PTAB actions in the corresponding district court proceeding: for instance, the PTAB decision to institute or not institute an inter partes review (IPR) or covered business method patent review (CBM), or the PTAB’s claim construction. The panel will also examine the impact of recent Federal Circuit decisions such as Skyhawke Technologies v. Deca, where the appellate court ruled that PTAB claim construction in an inter partes reexamination is not binding on a district court, and Murata v. Daifuku, which may make it easier for a patent owner to obtain a stay in district court.
Inducement and Indirect Infringement: A Muddle after NuVasive?
What is the current state of the law regarding inducement and indirect infringement? Confused, or so one would surmise after reading Judge Reyna’s concurrence in the recent Federal Circuit opinion in Warsaw Orthopedic v. NuVasive.According to that concurrence, the majority opinion is difficult to harmonize with Commil and Global-Tech, two of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions on this patent law topic. And experts say unanswered questions remain about how to prove intent to induce and what constitutes willful blindness.
Our panel includes two litigators, one with experience representing plaintiffs in such cases and the other representing defendants, as well as a law professor who is an expert in inducement and whose work has been cited favorably by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. They will review the state of the law and give specific current guidance for both plaintiffs and defendants at each stage of litigation involving inducement: pre-complaint, motion to dismiss, discovery, summary judgment, trial, and remedy. They will also discuss the future direction of the law.
This month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Halo and Stryker makes it easier for a plaintiff in a patent infringement case to win enhanced damages for willfulness. But how much easier? And which of the changes to the Seagate standard – throwing out the threshold of “objective recklessness”, lessening the burden of proof, or rejecting the Federal Circuit’s tripartite framework for appellate review — will have the most impact and in what kind of situations? Our panelists are litigators involved in cases involving willfulness, including C.R. Bard v. Gore and Innovention Toys v. MGA, and PPC v. Corning. They will discuss litigation strategy going forward, and other questions, such as whether companies should reevaluate policies regarding opinions of counsel on non-infringement during product development.
On May 2, new rules go into effect at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that apply to all AIA petitions filed on or after that date and to any ongoing AIA preliminary proceeding or trial. Our panel, which includes a PTAB administrative patent judge and two experienced AIA litigators, will discuss how the new rules will affect strategy for both petitioners and patent owners.
The discussion will center on the rule that allows the patent owner to file new testimonial evidence with its preliminary response without any limit on scope. It provides that any factual dispute created by that evidence that is material to the institution decision be resolved in favor of the petitioner solely for purposes of determining whether to institute a trial. The panel will also discuss other aspects of the new rules, including provisions about claim construction for a challenged patent that will expire prior to the issuance of a final written decision by the PTAB.
The recent Federal Circuit decision in Shaw Industries v. Automated Creel Systems is the latest to touch an important issue for companies involved in post-grant proceedings and related litigation: what happens to the claims and prior art references that are left on the cutting room floor after the PTAB institutes a review on just some of the issues raised in a petition?
Shaw Industries appears to be the first time the Federal Circuit is on record agreeing with the PTAB’s policy that issues that are not instituted are not subject to estoppel either at the PTAB or in district court. This clarification may well allow petitioners to take a more liberal strategy to including matters in their petition.
But the Shaw Industries case also highlights concerns of some Federal Circuit judges. Judge Reyna in a concurrence sharply criticized the PTAB for saying it is not obligated to even state a reason for its decisions on whether to institute inter partes reviews. “The PTO’s claim to unchecked discretionary authority is unprecedented,” and appears to disregard the Administrative Procedures Act, Judge Reyna wrote. Our panel of post-grant experts will consider this case and other Federal Circuit decisions involving redundant grounds, such as Synopsis v. Mentor Graphics.
Petitioners and patent owners involved in inter partes review (IPR) and covered business methods (CBM) review face significant new uncertainties after the U.S. Supreme Court’s grant of certoriari in Cuozzo v. Lee in mid-January. The high court agreed to address two questions: (1) whether the USPTO acted within its rulemaking authority by adopting “broadest reasonable interpretation” claim construction in AIA proceedings; and (2) whether a party may challenge, on appeal to the Federal Circuit, any part of the PTO’s decision to institute an IPR.
Our panel includes a litigator and a law firm professor with extensive appellate experience in patent law, as well as a top PTAB litigator. They will discuss the options open to the Court, including whether the Justices need to consider whether to give Chevron deference to the USPTO in AIA matters. They also will give timely advice on what to do now to the petitioners and patent owners involved in more than 2,000 cases presently pending at varying stages of the PTAB pipeline: pretrial at PTAB, including petition and preliminary response; trial phase at PTAB; after Final Written Decision; already filed an appeal to the Federal Circuit; before or at oral argument to the Federal Circuit; after oral argument but before Federal Circuit opinion.

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