The Reexamination Center

This week the Official Gazette noticed three inter partes reexamination requests. Facebook filed a request against Leader Technologies’ patent on a dynamic association of electronically stored information with iterative workflow changes. Nanoco Technologies filed a request against Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s patent on highly luminescent color selective nanocrystalline materials. Sybase filed a request against Telecommunication Systems’ patent on a system, method, and apparatus for automatically and dynamically updating options, features, and/or services available to a client device.

This week the Official Gazette noticed eleven ex parte reexamination requests. CUNO Incorporated and 3M Innovative Properties Company jointly filed a request against Pall Corporation’s patent on a filter with over-laid pleats in intimate contact. Dorman Products filed a request against BorgWarner’s patent on a regenerative pump having vanes and side channels particularly shaped to direct fluid flow. RGB Systems filed a request against Crestron Electronics’ design patent on a tabletop media center. Anonymous third parties filed requests against patents assigned to Variant Holdings, Petrosonics, TheraSense, Plantronics, LG Electronics, and Wacker Neuson.

Washington, DC-based intellectual property specialty law firm Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. (SKGF) has published the first paper to provide an in-depth analysis of all aspects of patent reexamination appeals, including appeals from the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI), as well as from the BPAI to the Court of Appeals to the Federal Circuit (CAFC).  Appeals from the Central Reexamination Unit provides the first detailed analysis on what is happening to patents in reexamination being appealed at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO).  The statistics and analysis provided is based on a comprehensive review of all 188 publicly available final decisions rendered by the BPAI from January 1, 2007 to January 1, 2010.  Examples of data collected include various appeal statistics such as time between a Right of Appeal Notice docketing at the Board, and between docketing and a Board Decision on the merits for both inter partes and ex parte reexamination.  It also includes statistics on affirmance and reversal rates by art unit.  This paper will be part of the course materials for the upcoming 5th Annual Advanced Patent Law Institute on January 21-22, 2010 hosted at the USPTO.