Preliminary Injunction Denied Because of Reexamination Grant
Scott Daniels | September 2, 2010
A reexamination request is an obvious way for an accused infringer to attack the validity of a patent during litigation. But reexamination may also have collateral benefits for the accused infringer. For instance, a court’s analysis of a motion for a preliminary injunction may be affected by a reexamination, as was demonstrated this week in Fusilamp, LLC v. Littelfuse, Inc., Case No. 10-20528-CIV-Altonaga, in the Southern District of Florida.
There, the patentee Fusilamp moved in June for a preliminary injunction to stop Littelfuse from selling the products alleged to infringe the patent. Littelfuse opposed the motion, asserting that Fusilamp had failed to show “a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of the underlying claim.” Littelfuse relied, in part, on the fact that the PTO had granted a request for reexamination of the patent.
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Microchip Wins Second Reexamination Victory at Board
Scott Daniels | September 2, 2010
Microchip Technology won today its second victory at the PTO Board of Appeals in less than a month.
Microchip’s U.S. Patent No. 6,483,183 claimed an integrated circuit package with an IC chip including a microcontroller having an n-bit data bus and up to n pins electrically coupled to the microcontroller. The examiner had determined that the claimed IC package was obvious over the prior art. Significantly, the examiner found that the “microcomputer” disclosed in the primary reference corresponded to the “microcontroller” recited in the pending claims.
The Board has now reversed the examiner, holding that one skilled in the art would construe “microcontroller” as having all the functions of a complete computer, essentially, a computer-on-a-chip that includes a central processing unit, a memory, and input/output interfaces.
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Applied Materials Loses Four Appeals
Scott Daniels | September 2, 2010
On Tuesday the PTO Board affirmed the obviousness rejections of four Applied Materials patents related to chemical-mechanical polishing of substrates.
The four appeals raised quite similar issues. The decisions are significant in that they show the difficulties faced by a patentee in reexamination attempting to overcome a prima facie case of obviousness with a showing of commercial success. As is common with such attempts, the Board found a lack of nexus between the claimed invention and the asserted success.
Reexamination Requests Filed the Week of August 23rd
Scott Daniels | September 1, 2010
Traditionally, reexamination requests have been the province of U.S. companies – foreign companies are among the leading filers of patent applications, but they have been reluctant to use reexamination as a means of attacking the patents of others. That has begun to change in recent years, as more and more foreign companies have started to use reexamination. This week, for instance, Taiwan Fulgent Enterprise Co., Ltd. filed requests against two patents of a U.S. competitor.
Also of interest is a request filed by Google against a Xerox patent for “generating queries” that is the subject of a law suit between the companies. We also see requests, likely filed by Ninestar Image, against two Canon patents – the requests were filed less than two months after Canon filed complaints against Ninestar and others, in both the Southern District of New York and the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging infringement of those patents. On August 18, Judge Robert W. Sweet stayed the District Court case pending final determination of the ITC investigation.
The following inter partes requests were filed:
(1) 95/001,421 (electronically filed) – U.S. Patent No. 7,635,665 having John Raymond Keim as its first named inventor and entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TREATING STORED CROPS. Filed August 24, 2010 by Aceto Corporation.
(2) 95/001,422 (electronically filed) – U.S. Patent No. 7,618,303 owned by Ganz and entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TOY ADOPTION MARKETING. Filed August 24, 2010 by Hasbro, Inc.
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