NHK-Fintiv Denials Have Declined Dramatically, Says USPTO Study
July 20, 2022
USPTO Director Kathi Vidal recently kicked off a push to reform the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) use of discretionary denials based on parallel litigation, limiting the application of the NHK-Fintiv rule in a new interim gui...
Read full postJudge Albright, Again the Nation’s Top Patent Judge in Q2, Gets Further Pushback from Federal Circuit
July 13, 2022
The top judge in Q2 2022 was Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright, with 25% of new litigation filed in his courtroom. Judge Albright—who has gone to great lengths to attract patent litigation, drawing the ire of Congress in th...
Read full postLitigants Wielding Alice Succeed More Often When Challenging Patents Asserted by NPEs
June 29, 2022
RPX data on patent eligibility show that defendants succeed more often against NPEs when arguing that patents asserted against them are invalid under Alice, the Supreme Court’s June 2014 ruling on patent eligibility. Following that decisi...
Read full postAnticounterfeit Litigation Accounted for a Sizable Share of Patent Assertion Activity in Q1
June 22, 2022
RPX’s latest quarterly report includes an analysis of patent litigation filed by operating companies—revealing that while such activity was up in Q1 2022 compared to a slow quarter one year ago, nearly all of that increase was attributa...
Read full postAlice Remains in Narrowed State as Supreme Court Considers Reviewing American Axle
June 15, 2022
The US Solicitor General recently urged the Supreme Court to review the Federal Circuit’s controversial decision in American Axle, a divided ruling that invalidated a mechanical invention for claiming a natural law—sparking further deba...
Read full postAIA Review Institution Rates Level Out as Parties Stipulate Around NHK-Fintiv
June 8, 2022
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial in 62% of the America Invents Act (AIA) review petitions addressed in the first quarter of 2022. Last year the institution rate was 58.7%, a slight increase from 2020’s 58.2% but s...
Read full postE-Commerce and Software Saw the Most NPE Activity in Q1 2022, with Familiar Plaintiffs and Patents
May 25, 2022
The top market sector for NPE litigation in Q1 2022 was E-Commerce and Software, accounting for more than a quarter of all NPE activity. Networking saw the second most NPE assertions in the first quarter, followed closely by Consumer Electr...
Read full postPTAB Petitions Held Steady in Q1 as Federal Circuit Focused on IPR Estoppel
May 18, 2022
In the first quarter of 2022, 336 petitions for America Invents Act (AIA) review were filed with the PTAB, including 328 petitions for inter partes review (IPR) and eight petitions for post-grant review (PGR). Filings in Q1 were essentially...
Read full postWest Texas Was Q1’s Top Patent Venue as Judge Stark Left Delaware for the Federal Circuit
May 11, 2022
In Q1 2022, the Western District of Texas was once again the most popular district for all patent litigation and for litigation filed by NPEs. Delaware held a close second place in both of those categories, taking the number-one spot for op...
Read full postNHK-Fintiv Has Led to an Upswing in Reexam Requests
May 4, 2022
In Q1 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) faced continued stakeholder pressure over the NHK-Fintiv rule, which allows the Board to use its discretion to deny institution in AIA reviews based on several factors related to the stat...
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