Sign up to create alerts for Instruments,
Economic Events and content by followed authors
Free Sign Up Already have an account? Sign In
Quotes
All Instrument Types
- All Instrument Types
- Indices
- Equities
- ETFs
- Funds
- Commodities
- Currencies
- Crypto
- Bonds
- Certificates
Please try another search
⏰ React to the Market Faster with Custom, Real-Time News Get Started
Court revives Apple, Google challenge to U.S. patent-review policy
3/3
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Apple Inc logo is shown outside the company's 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S. June 13, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam//File Photo
2/3
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Apple Inc logo is shown outside the company's 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S. June 13, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam//File Photo
2/3
By Blake Brittain
(Reuters) - Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) LLC, Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) and others can sue the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to challenge a rule that reduced the number of patent-validity proceedings at a USPTO tribunal, a U.S. appeals court said Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a California federal court's decision to dismiss the companies' lawsuit and said the agency may have failed to go through a required public notice-and-comment rulemaking process.
The PTO declined to comment on the ruling.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda said the company appreciates the decision and looks forward to making its case at the lower court. A Cisco spokesperson said the ruling reinforces that the PTO's patent review proceedings are "an important vehicle to preserve a balanced patent system, protect innovation, and assure patent quality in the United States."
Representatives for the other plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The PTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board is popular with big tech companies that are often targeted with patent lawsuits and that use the board's "inter partes review" process to contest patents they are accused of infringing. An internal rule that gave the agency's judges greater discretion to deny inter partes review petitions "dramatically reduced access" to the process, the companies told the appeals court.
Apple, Google, Cisco, Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) and Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) sued the PTO in the California federal court in 2020 over the rule. They argued it undermined the role inter partes review plays in "protecting a strong patent system" and violated federal law.
Companies including Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Honda, Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and Dell filed briefs at the Federal Circuit in support of the plaintiffs.
The California court dismissed the case in 2021, citing U.S. Supreme Court rulings that Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions on whether to review inter partes review petitions cannot be appealed.
The Federal Circuit also rejected the companies' arguments that the rule was arbitrary and violated U.S. patent law. But the three-judge panel said the PTO may have been required to hold a period of public notice and comment before making the rule, and that it could be challenged based on that argument.
The case is Apple Inc v. Vidal, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 22-1249.
Related Articles
Add Chart to Comment
Confirm Block
Are you sure you want to block %USER_NAME%?
By doing so, you and %USER_NAME% will not be able to see any of each other's Investing.com's posts.
%USER_NAME% was successfully added to your Block List
Since you’ve just unblocked this person, you must wait 48 hours before renewing the block.
Report this comment
I feel that this comment is:
Comment flagged
Thank You!
Your report has been sent to our moderators for review
Add a Comment
We encourage you to use comments to engage with other users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind:
Enrich the conversation, don’t trash it.
Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically. Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user. Racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated.
Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.