Vacatur Archives - IP UPDATE

Vacatur

Word From on High: Provide Reasoned Explanation When Departing From Established Practice

by Paul Devinsky | Dec 7, 2023 | Trademarks

In a decision on motion in an appeal from the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit admonished the Board on remand to “furnish a reasoned explanation” when departing from its “established practice” on the issue of waiver. Universal Life Church Monastery v. American Marriage Ministries, Case No. 22-1744 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 22, 2023) (Chen, Cunningham, Stark, JJ.) (unpublished).

Universal Life Church filed an application to register the mark GET ORDAINED in two classes of services: ecclesiastical services and retail store services. As to both classes, American Marriage opposed on the grounds that the mark was merely descriptive and failed to function as a trademark. The Board sustained the opposition against both classes of service notwithstanding that American Marriage did not present any argument regarding retail store services. Universal Life argued that American Marriage waived its opposition to registration of the mark for retail services—an argument ignored by the Board in its decision. Universal Life appealed.

After oral argument at the Federal Circuit, the parties jointly moved to vacate the Board’s decision as it related to retail store services or to remand the matter to the Board to consider a party stipulation to that effect.

The Federal Circuit denied the motion, finding no entitlement to the “extraordinary remedy of vacatur” or circumstances necessitating a remand.

Instead, the Federal Circuit vacated the Board’s decision based on its failure to explain why American Marriage’s silence on registrability for retail store services did not constitute waiver, or to “furnish a reasoned explanation for departing from [the Board’s] established practice of deeming unargued claims waived.”

The Federal Circuit noted that the Board’s established waiver practice for inter partes proceedings was that “[i]f a party fails to reference a pleaded claim or affirmative defense in its brief, the Board will deem the claim or affirmative defense to have been waived.”

The Federal Circuit cited several precedential Board decisions, including General Mills v. Fage Dairy Processing Industry (2011), where the Board “deemed opposition claims directed to one class in a multi-class application as waived when there was an ‘absence of arguments in opposers’ brief as to anything other than [goods in the non-waived class].’” The Board’s precedent requires that “in an opposition proceeding for a multi-class application, ‘[e]ach international class stands on its own, for all practical purposes like a separate application, and [the Board] must make determinations for each separate class.’”

Since Vacatur Seeks Equitable Relief, Clean Hands Matter

by McDermott Will & Emery | Jun 30, 2022 | Patents

In an opinion related to its 2021 ruling that a decision in earlier inter partes reexaminations of related patents had a preclusive effect that collaterally estopped the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) from making new findings on the same issue, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the Board’s decision on remand since the patent at issue expired. SynQor, Inc. v. Vicor Corp, Case No. 20-1259 (Fed. Cir. Jun. 17, 2022) (Chen, Prost, JJ.), (Lourie, J., dissenting) (non-precedential).

Background

After being sued by SynQor, Vicor petitioned for reexamination of several SynQor patents (including the ’021 and ’190 patents). In the ’190 patent reexamination proceeding, Vicor successfully argued that the ’190 patent claims (including new claims sought to be added by SynQor) were unpatentable over two references. After appeals to the Board (which reversed the examiner) and Federal Circuit (which reversed-in-part, vacated-in-part), the case was remanded to the Board to consider the examiner’s obviousness rejections in light of the Court’s conclusion that prior art patents anticipated certain claims.

On remand, the Board affirmed almost all of the examiner’s rejections and applied a new ground of rejection to one of SynQor’s proposed new claims. However, before the Board issued its final decision regarding the new claims, the ’190 patent expired and SynQor appealed to the Federal Circuit to vacate the Board’s decisions regarding the new claims on the ground that the ’190 patent’s expiration rendered the Board’s patentability decision moot. The Court agreed and vacated the Board’s decisions, explaining that the inability to issue the new claims meant that “the Board’s patentability determinations were unreviewable for mootness” since the Court would be “frustrated by the vagaries of circumstance” (thereby falling under the Supreme Court’s Munsingwear doctrine) from reviewing the Board’s determinations on the merits.

Similarly, in the ’021 patent’s reexamination, the examiner rejected all challenged claims, including two new claims that SynQor proposed. The Board affirmed the examiner’s rejections, and on appeal the Federal Circuit affirmed-in-part, vacated-in-part and remanded for the Board to reconsider two obviousness grounds it deemed the Board had unjustifiably reached inconsistent conclusions on (relative to a separate reexamination proceeding for another related patent). On remand, the Board again found SynQor’s proposed new claims unpatentable, unaware that the ’021 patent had expired over a year prior. In its rehearing petition, SynQor informed the Board of the ’021 patent’s expiration and asked the Board to vacate its decision on the merits. SynQor appealed after the Board declined to do so.

Appeal on the ’021 Patent

On appeal, SynQor requested that the Federal Circuit vacate the Board’s decision (for the same reasoning as in the ’190 patent appeal). Vicor argued that the Court lacked Article III jurisdiction to consider the request, and that SynQor was not entitled to equitable relief because of its failure to inform the Board of the ’021 patent’s expiration date, which caused the remand decision to be issued. Vicor also argued that the timing of the ’021 patent expiring before [...]

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What Preclusion? Post-IPR Reexam Moves Forward

by Tim Dunker | Mar 10, 2022 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived a petitioner’s validity challenge seeking ex parte review at the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO), reversing a district court decision dismissing its complaint seeking Administrative Procedures Act (APA) review of the PTO Director’s vacatur decision. The Federal Circuit concluded that the petitioner was not subject to inter partes review (IPR) estoppel from pursuing reexamination after receiving IPR final written decisions concerning the same claims of the same patents. Alarm.com Inc. v. Hirshfeld, Case No. 21-2102 (Fed Cir, Feb 24, 2022) (Taranto, Chen, Cunningham, JJ.)

This case explores the tension between the ex parte reexam statute and the IPR estoppel statute. Under 35 U.S.C. § 302, “any person at any time may file a request for reexamination . . . of any claim of a patent on the basis of any prior art cited under [§ 301].” If the PTO Director determines “pursuant to [§ 303(a)] that no substantial new question of patentability is raised,” that determination “will be final and nonappealable.” § 303(c). If a substantial new question is deemed to have been raised, “the determination will include an order for reexamination of the patent for resolution of the question.” § 304. Under § 315(e)(1), a petitioner in an IPR that results in a final written decision is estopped from requesting or maintaining a proceeding before the PTO “with respect to that claim on any ground that the petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised during that inter partes review.”

Alarm.com filed several IPR petitions that resulted in three final written decisions holding that Alarm.com had not carried its burden of proving that the challenged claims at issue were unpatentable. The Federal Circuit affirmed all three decisions in its 2018 ruling in Vivint, Inc. v. Alarm.com. Alarm.com subsequently filed three requests for ex parte reexamination of the same claims under 35 U.S.C. § 302 and 37 C.F.R. § 1.510, presenting different grounds than were presented in the IPRs. Instead of rendering a § 303(a) decision on the issue of whether petitioner presented a substantial new questions of patentability, the Director vacated the requests, finding that Alarm.com reasonably could have raised its reexamination grounds in the IPRs and, therefore, was estopped under § 315(e)(1) from submitting the requests. Alarm.com filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia against the Director and the PTO under 5 U.S.C. § 702, stating that the Director’s actions were arbitrary and capricious. Following dismissal of the complaint, Alarm.com appealed.

The PTO argued that the overall ex parte reexamination scheme precluded judicial review of the Director’s vacatur decision based on § 315(e)(1) estoppel, which brought Alarm.com’s challenge within the exception to APA review, i.e., where “statutes preclude judicial review.” 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(1). The PTO did not raise any other arguments as to why judicial review would not be available under the APA.

The Federal Circuit explained that “[t]he only portion of the ex parte reexamination statutory scheme that expressly precludes judicial review is § [...]

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One for All, and All for One . . . Except When It Comes to Patent License Comparability

by Christopher M. Bruno | Sep 30, 2021 | Patents

Examining whether portfolio patent licenses can be sufficiently comparable to a single-patent license for the purposes of supporting a patent damages verdict, a split panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that, at least without accounting for distinguishing features, the answer is no. Omega Patents, LLC v. CalAmp Corp., Case No. 20-1793 (Fed. Cir., Sept. 14, 2021) (Prost, J.)

The most recent decision was the result of a second jury trial, after the Federal Circuit previously ordered a new trial. At issue in this appeal were certain direct-infringement findings, admission of technical expert testimony and the underlying damages determination. Multiple errors were raised regarding the latter, the most significant of which was the court’s apportionment analysis.

At trial, the jury awarded a royalty of $5 per unit to Omega for CalAmp’s infringement of a single patent that covered multi-vehicle tracking units. On appeal, CalAmp contended that patent damages law required apportionment, and that the evidence was insufficient to support apportionment. Judge Prost, joined by Judge Dyk, agreed, while Judge Hughes dissented in part.

First, the Federal Circuit rejected Omega’s argument that apportionment was unnecessary because all parts of the infringing units were covered by the claims. According to the Court, even where all elements of the infringing unit are claimed, a patentee still must approximate the value of the patented features as compared to the conventional, pre-existing elements. Thus, the jury could not, as a matter of law, merely value the entire unit.

Next, the Federal Circuit held that Omega could not rely on the entire-market-value rule to support its damages verdict. That rule permits a patentee to value the infringement where the patented feature drove demand for the entire product. But on the record here, it was undisputed that other conventional elements contributed to sales of the underlying product. At most, the record indicated that the patent technology was important or helpful—which was insufficient to show that it actually drove sales.

Lastly, Omega contended that its royalty was supported by licensing evidence, which included (1) Omega’s president’s testimony that its policy was to license its entire portfolio for a certain amount regardless of the number of patents included at the time of licensing, and (2) 18 license agreements consummated by Omega, some of which included the patent at issue. For both items, the Federal Circuit found evidence of apportionment lacking. To the first claim (i.e., that Omega would not have hypothetically licensed on a patent-by-patent basis), the Court concluded that crediting such testimony would serve as an end-run around the apportionment requirement because it did not approximate the value of the specific patent at issue. So too with the 18 license agreements, many of which identified a portfolio that included almost 50 additional patents. And although the damages expert identified the portfolio feature as distinguishing, the expert’s failure to explain how to separate out the value of the individually asserted patent was fatal.

In dissent, Judge Hughes would have permitted the conventional, more [...]

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