- Solus Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. v. SK Nexilis Co., Ltd.Rehearing deniedPTAB · Oct 7, 2025 · IPR2024-01462 · APJ Jo-Anne M Kokoski · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Solus’s rehearing request, leaving institution denied for claims 1–8 because the petition did not adequately show motivation to combine Hanafusa and Dobashi.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“of the decision de novo, but instead review the decision for an abuse of discretion. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). An abuse of discretion may be determined “if a decision is based on an erroneous interpretation of law, if a factual finding is not supported by substantial evidence, or if the decision represents” slip op. at 2
- Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successNot shown unpatentableMotivation not foundNot shown unpatentable
“In particular, neither Petitioner nor Dr. Josefowicz adequately explain why a POSITA looking for ways to make Hanafusa’s surface roughness low-profile would look to methods to achieve Dobashi’s RSm values. Dobashi teaches that because RSm “can be adopted as the period of waviness, RSm can also be used as an indicator for judgment of the surface.” Ex. 1005, 2:66–3:1, 6:23–26. Dobashi explains that waviness is “an indicator for determining whether the fine pattern forming performance is good or bad,” and “[t]he surface has small waviness and is smooth when RSm is large, and the surface has large waviness Dobashi also teaches that surface roughness Rzjis is used as a low-profile indicator. Ex. 1005, 2:66–3:1. Dobashi, therefore, teaches that RSm is an indicator of surface waviness, which Dobashi explains is different than surface roughness. Id. at 2:66– 3:3, 6:23–29. Given these teachings in Dobashi, neither Petitioner nor Dr. Josefowicz sufficiently explains how or why a POSITA would have been motivated to implement Dobashi’s RSm values to make Hanafusa’s surface roughness low-profile. See Pet. 10–12; Ex. 1003 ¶¶ 46–52.” slip op. at 4
§ 103 obviousnessPatents in suitUS 11,346,014 - Solus Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. v. SK Nexilis Co., Ltd.Rehearing deniedPTAB · Oct 7, 2025 · IPR2024-01461 · APJ Jo-Anne M Kokoski · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied rehearing and left in place its denial of institution because Petitioner did not show that claims 1–10 were likely obvious over the asserted combinations.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“II. STANDARD OF REVIEW When rehearing a decision on institution, we do not review the merits of the decision de novo, but instead review the decision for an abuse of discretion. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). An abuse of discretion may be determined “if a decision is based on an erroneous interpretation of law, if a factual finding is not supported by substantial evidence, or if the decision represents an unreasonable judgment in weighing relevant factors.” Arnold Partnership v. Dudas, 362 F.3d 1338, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing In re 1 US 2013/0108922 A1, published May 2, 2013 (Ex. 1004, “Shinozaki”). 2 G. Khatibi, Temperature Dependent Elastic and Thermal Properties of Thin Copper Foils, Copper; Proceedings of the International Conference Copper ’06 (2006) (Ex. 1006, “Khatibi”). 3 Korean Patent Pub. No. 10-2012-0003485, published Jan. 10, 2012 (Ex. 1013; Ex. 1014 (English translation), “Toshio”). 4 US 2013/0108887 A1, published May 2, 2013 (Ex. 1012, “Kim”). 5 Griesi, M.B., Characterization of Electrodeposited Copper Foil Surface Roughness for Accurate Conductor Power Loss Modeling (2014) (Master’s Thesis, University of South Carolina) (Ex. 1015, “Griesi”). rehearing has the burden to show that the decision should be modified. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d). Additionally, the request for rehearing “must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where each matter was previously addressed in a motion, an opposition, or a reply.” Id.” slip op. at 2
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Not shown unpatentable
“For example, Dr. Randall does not provide adequate explanation or objective evidence to support his opinion that Khatibi’s use of a laser speckle based dilatometer instead of the claimed thermomechanical analyzer “is unlikely to significantly impact the CTE[6] value” because “variations in equipment and a heating speed of 5° C/min would not significantly alter the results.” Ex. 1003 ¶ 58. In particular, Dr. Randall neither explains what constitutes a “significant” impact on CTE, nor provides objective evidence to support his contention that equipment variations and heating differences would not “significantly alter” the resulting measurements. And although Dr. Randall opines that “the heating rate (5°C per minute) is typical for certain devices” such as a thermomechanical analyzer or dilatometer, and “[t]ypically, these devices use temperature ramp rates between 2°C and 20°C per minutes, so the ‘5° C./min’ recited in [1d] is common and should not drastically affect the measurement results,” Dr. Randall fails to point us to any evidence showing that these temperatures are “typical” or that the claimed heating rate is “common.” Id. ¶ 59 (emphases added).” slip op. at 4
- Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successMotivation not foundNot shown unpatentable
“Petitioner, however, does not adequately explain why a POSITA would have been motivated to modify Kim’s copper foil surface to have a Pc value of 19.2 as reported in Griesi. In particular, neither Petitioner nor Dr. Randall points us to, nor do we discern, any teaching in Griesi that a peak count of 19.2 provides any particular benefits or properties that would have lead a POSITA to modify Kim’s copper foil surface as Petitioner proposes. Instead, Petitioner’s arguments that a POSITA would have been motivated to modify Kim’s copper foil surface with Griesi’s peak count patent itself. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007) (stating that the fact finder must be aware “of the distortion caused by hindsight bias and must be cautious of arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning”). It was Petitioner’s burden to establish that the combined teachings Kim and Griesi disclose limitation [1g] as proposed. We are not persuaded that we misapprehended Petitioner’s argument when we determined that Petitioner did not meet that burden.” slip op. at 8
- BurdenDecided for patent owner
“It was Petitioner’s burden to establish the Khatibi, alone or in combination with Shinozaki, Toshio, and Kim, discloses limitation [1d]. We concluded that Petitioner failed to meet that burden for the reasons explained in our Decision. We are not persuaded that we overlooked or misapprehended Khatibi’s disclosures, or Petitioner’s evidence and explanation thereof, in doing so.7” slip op. at 5
§ 103 obviousnesscites KSRPatents in suitUS 10,811,689 - Medivis, Inc. v. Novarad Corp.Rehearing deniedPTAB · Apr 23, 2024 · IPR2023-00042 · APJ Scott Raevsky · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Medivis’s rehearing request, leaving in place the decision that claims 1–6 and 11–20 were not shown unpatentable because the cited references’ public accessibility was not established.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“The burden of showing a decision should be modified lies with the party challenging the decision. The request must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where each matter was previously addressed in a motion, an opposition, a reply, or a sur-reply. Thus, a request for rehearing is not an opportunity to present new arguments or evidence or merely to disagree with the panel’s assessment of the arguments or weighing of the evidence. With this in mind, we address the arguments presented in turn.” slip op. at 2
- Novelty / Anticipation (§102) › Prior-art status of a reference › Printed publication / public accessibilityPrinted publication not establishedNot shown unpatentable
“accessibility, except the references Chen, 3D Visualization, and 3D Slicer themselves. This is insufficient and tantamount to submitting no proof of public accessibility. To find public accessibility, we must determine that a “document has been disseminated or otherwise made available to the extent that persons interested and ordinarily skilled in the subject matter or art[,] exercising reasonable diligence, can locate it.” SRI Int’l, Inc. v. Internet Sec. Sys., Inc., 511 F.3d 1186, 1194 (Fed. Cir. 2008), quoted in Dec. 26–27. Petitioner has insufficiently explained, by a preponderance of the evidence, how Chen, 3D Visualization, and 3D Slicer themselves answer the question of whether they have been disseminated or otherwise made available to those of ordinary skill in the art. Thus, we did not overlook or misapprehend any evidence of public accessibility on pages 29–30 of the Petition.” slip op. at 4
- Strike new argumentNew argument disregardedOther
“declaration by reference, we exercised our discretion to address a portion of it in our Decision. Dec. 30–31. We did so because we noted that his testimony was “particularly deficient for [the 3D Slicer] reference.” Id. at 30. Petitioner now asserts that in doing so, we “misapprehended or overlooked the logic that application documentation” like 3D Slicer’s “must be accessible to potential application users because it serves to help users use the application.” Req. 7. But Petitioner’s assertion that “application documentation must be accessible to potential application users because it serves to help users use the application” is a new argument, not raised in the Petition or Reply. Even if Petitioner’s assertion were correct, it falls far short of the evidence required to prove that 3D Slicer was actually disseminated to interested members of the public. See, e.g., Weber, 92 F.4th at 1068. Thus, Petitioner’s argument fails to persuade us that we overlooked or misapprehended anything.” slip op. at 11
§ 102 anticipationPatents in suitUS 11,004,271 - Juniper Networks, Inc. v. Correct Transmission, LLCRehearing deniedPTAB · Dec 16, 2021 · IPR2021-00814 · APJ Stephen E Belisle · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Juniper’s rehearing request, leaving intact its denial of institution because the petition did not show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on any challenged claim.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“because the Board was not persuaded by Petitioner’s arguments and evidence for purposes of institution does not mean that we overlooked or misapprehended Petitioner’s arguments and evidence, and importantly, a request for rehearing is not an opportunity merely to reargue one’s case or to express disagreement with the Board’s decision.” slip op. at 3
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Institution denied meritsInstitution denied
“But Bruckman’s “trunk link” (or LAG as argued by Petitioner) is explicitly disclosed as a link to a core network, not as the links (or traces 34 on backplane 26) to subsidiary modules 24, as argued by Petitioner: “In network access systems, for example, a backplane may be used to connect a main module, having a trunk link to a core network, to a number of subsidiary modules, such as line cards, with ports serving network users. Ex. 1007, 1:25–30 (emphasis added); see id. at 1:61–2:4 (“The master module comprises a switch, which is typically used for linking the subsidiary modules via the connection lines to a network trunk.” (emphases added)); Dec. 25. Bruckman also explicitly discloses that “[a]t any given time, a number of the connection lines [between main module 22 and subsidiary modules 24, i.e., traces 34] are likely to be idle” (Ex. 1007, 2:2–4), which is contrary to a purpose of a LAG (see Ex. 1001, 2:10–16 (“The [LAG] forwarding entity usually attempts to distribute the load evenly over each physical output port of the aggregated logical link.” (emphasis added))). See Dec. 25–28. Thus, in the Decision, we found neither Petitioner nor its declarant had explained sufficiently, let alone with particularity, why the skilled artisan, but for hindsight, would have understood Bruckman to teach the Physical/Logical Link Limitations, of which the physical links are subject to the Designating Limitations, as recited, for example, in claim 1. Indeed, we were not persuaded by Petitioner’s arguments in its Petition as to the Physical/Logical Link Limitations, and having reviewed the Request, remain unpersuaded. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (“[A] patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known in the prior art.”).” slip op. at 4
Nonecites KSRPatents in suitUS 7,768,928 - Google LLC v. Uniloc 2017 LLCRehearing deniedPTAB · May 25, 2021 · IPR2020-00170 · APJ Lynne E Pettigrew · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Google’s rehearing request, leaving institution denied for claims 1–14 and 17–20 because the petition did not adequately explain combining Hull and Barber.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“disclosure or that the Decision’s analysis of Hull is unsupported by substantial evidence. Petitioner does not point to any disclosure in Hull of descriptors that are not invariant to distortions such as those caused by translation, rotation, and scaling. See Req. Reh’g 2–8. Although Petitioner cites references in Hull to “other” or “alternative” embodiments, Petitioner does not identify, nor do we see, any descriptors other than distortion- invariant descriptors in those embodiments. See id. at 3–8. Nor does Petitioner cite any disclosure in Hull explicitly stating that distortion-invariant descriptors are “optional” or “exemplary,” as Petitioner contends. See id. at 1, 6, 8.” slip op. at 4
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Institution denied meritsInstitution denied
“adequate showing in its obviousness analysis that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the teachings of Hull1 and Barber2 in the manner proposed to achieve the claimed invention, which relates to a system and method for matching a target image to images stored in a database.” slip op. at 2
- Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successMotivation not foundNot shown unpatentable
“adequate showing in its obviousness analysis that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the teachings of Hull1 and Barber2 in the manner proposed to achieve the claimed invention, which relates to a system and method for matching a target image to images stored in a database.” slip op. at 2
§ 103 obviousnessPatents in suitUS 6,253,201 - Metall Zug AG / Haag-Streit AG et al. v. Carl Zeiss Meditec AGRehearing deniedPTAB · Mar 4, 2021 · IPR2020-01074 · APJ Grace Karaffa Obermann · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied rehearing and left in place its denial of institution, finding no abuse of discretion in denying the follow-on petition under General Plastic.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“When resolving a rehearing request, the Board reviews a decision on institution “for an abuse of discretion” (37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c) (2019)), which occurs when a “decision was based on an erroneous conclusion of law,” “clearly erroneous factual findings,” or “a clear error of judgment.” PPG Indus. Inc. v. Celanese Polymer Specialties Co., 840 F.2d 1565, 1567 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (citations omitted). Applying that standard, we deny the Rehearing Request.” slip op. at 2
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Discretionary denial › General Plastic (serial petitions)Decided for patent owner
“Accordingly, the Board found, “Standing alone, the sheer number of petitions (five), taken together with Petitioner’s unexplained and significant delay in filing the four follow-on petitions, supports an exercise of our discretionary denial powers.” Dec. 4. The Board supported that finding by an analysis of the factors that bear on the discretionary denial inquiry as set forth in General Plastic Industrial Co. v. Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, IPR2016-01357, Paper 19 (PTAB Sept. 6, 2017) (precedential) (“General Plastic”). Dec. 4–10 (applying the General Plastic factors).” slip op. at 3
Discretionary denialPatents in suitUS 8,690,330 - U.S. Venture, Inc. v. Sunoco Partners Marketing & Terminals L.P.Rehearing deniedPTAB · Dec 17, 2020 · IPR2020-00728 · APJ Brent M Dougal · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied rehearing, leaving in place its denial of institution for claims 16–17 based on the Fintiv factors and its § 314(a) discretion.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“When rehearing a decision on institution, the Board reviews the decision for an abuse of discretion. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). An abuse of discretion may arise if the decision is based on an erroneous interpretation of law, if a factual finding is not supported by substantial evidence, or if an unreasonable judgment is made in weighing relevant factors. Star Fruits S.N.C. v. U.S., 393 F.3d 1277, 1281 (Fed. Cir. 2005); Arnold P’ship v. Dudas, 362 F.3d 1338, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2004); In re Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1315–16 (Fed. Cir. 2000). The burdens and requirements of a request for rehearing are stated in 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d): The burden of showing a decision should be modified lies with the party challenging the decision. The request must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where each matter was previously addressed in a motion, an opposition, or a reply. Thus, a request for rehearing is not an opportunity to present new arguments or evidence or merely to disagree with the panel’s assessment of the arguments or weighing of the evidence.” slip op. at 3
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Discretionary denial › Fintiv (parallel litigation)Decided for patent owner
“the evidence laid out an approximate time frame for when the trial would likely be held. Dec. 9 (citing Ex. 2003); see also id. at 8–9 (citing PO Resp. 35; Ex. 1026) (Discussing the Court’s Procedures and timeline for trial after the docket call). Thus, we determined that this factor favored denying institution under our analysis of the factors under Fintiv. Id. at 9.” slip op. at 4
- Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successNot reached
“Petitioner acknowledges that the proposed combination of the references relies on “us[ing] the cumulative totals of the flow rates of the unblended components in the Hoffman compensation process” (id.), however Patent Owner identifies that Hoffman appears to teach away from using the flow rates of the unblended components in its calculations because of the uncertainty in the flow rate of the blended line. Prelim. Resp. 19, 21– 22. Contrary to Petitioner’s position, it is not Patent Owner’s burden to show why “a person of ordinary skill in the art would be discouraged from measuring flow rates upstream for use in the Hoffman compensation process” (Reh. Req. 9), but rather, Petitioner bears the burden to show why a person of ordinary skill in the art would measure flow rates upstream for use in the Hoffman compensation process in view of the all of the teachings of the references (35 U.S.C. § 314(a) (Institution only authorized if “the information presented in the petition . . . shows that there is a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition.”)). Petitioner’s arguments do not show that we misapprehended or” slip op. at 8
- Claim Construction › Intrinsic evidence (Phillips canons) › Specification disavowal / 'present invention' languageNot reached
“argument concerning the construction of the term “in-line blending.” Id. at 13.” slip op. at 6
Claim construction§ 103 obviousnessDiscretionary denialPatents in suitUS 9,207,686 - Amazon Web Services, Inc. v. Kove Io, Inc.Rehearing deniedPTAB · Nov 12, 2020 · IPR2020-00276 · APJ Kamran Jivani · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied rehearing, leaving institution denied because Petitioner did not show RFC1034 disclosed the claimed unique identifier-to-entity relationship for claims 1, 3, 6, 10, 14, 17, 23, 24, 30, and 31.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d) provides that: A party dissatisfied with a decision may file a request for rehearing. The burden of showing a decision should be modified lies with the party challenging the decision. The request must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and where each matter was previously addressed in a motion, opposition, or a reply. See Office Trial Practice Guide (84 Fed. Reg. 64,280 (Nov. 21, 2019)) (emphasis added). Under 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c), “[w]hen rehearing a decision on petition, a panel will review the decision for an abuse of discretion.” An abuse of discretion occurs when a “decision was based on an erroneous conclusion of law or clearly erroneous factual findings, or . . . a clear error of” slip op. at 2
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Institution denied meritsInstitution denied
“institute a requested review, our inquiry seeks to ascertain whether Petitioner has demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on the challenges set forth in the Petition. 35 U.S.C. § 314(a); SAS Inst., Inc. v. Iancu, 138 S. Ct. 1348, 1359–60 (2018). That inquiry is not limited to disputes presented in a Patent Owner Preliminary Response. Indeed, filing of a Patent Owner Preliminary Response is optional and does not impact our statutory obligation to review the Petition for a reasonable likelihood of success. 35 U.S.C. § 313; 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(a).” slip op. at 4
- BurdenDecided for patent owner
“upon does not remedy the deficiencies we identified in the Petition. As we stated, Dr. Weissman’s testimony “does not resolve the failure of Petitioner to account for the required relationship between a host computer (i.e., entity) and a domain name (i.e., identifier).” Dec. on Inst. 20–21 (citing Pet. 19–20, 22–23; Ex. 1002 ¶¶ 75, 88) (emphasis added). Thus, Petitioner fails to show that we misapprehended or overlooked arguments or evidence regarding the claimed “entity” because Petitioner did not clearly explain how a “host” as disclosed in RFC1034 meets the claimed entity and how a domain name (i.e., the “identifier”) identifies a single host. A rehearing request is not an opportunity to argue what should have been addressed in the Petition.” slip op. at 5
NonePatents in suitUS 7,233,978 - PTAB · Oct 14, 2020 · IPR2020-00131 · APJ Jon B Tornquist · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Medtronic’s rehearing request and left in place its denial of institution for claims 25-39, finding no overlooked matter or abuse of discretion.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“STANDARD FOR REHEARING Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d): A party dissatisfied with a decision may file a single request for rehearing without prior authorization from the Board. The burden of showing a decision should be modified lies with the party challenging the decision. The request must specifically identify all matters the party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where each matter was previously addressed in a motion, an opposition, or a reply. When reconsidering a decision on institution, we review the decision for an abuse of discretion. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). An abuse of discretion exists where a “decision [i]s based on an erroneous conclusion of law or clearly erroneous factual findings, or . . . a clear error of judgment.” PPG Indus. Inc. v. Celanese Polymer Specialties Co., 840 F.2d 1565, 1567 (Fed. Cir. 1988).” slip op. at 2
- PTAB / AIA Trials › Discretionary denial › General Plastic (serial petitions)Other
“ANALYSIS The Petition in IPR2020-00131 was the fourth filed by Petitioner against the ’380 patent and is identified by Petitioner as “Petition 2B.” Paper 2, 2. The other three petitions are identified by Petitioner as “Petition 1A,” “Petition 1B,” and “Petition 2A” and assigned case numbers IPR2019- 00128, IPR2019-00129, and IPR2019-00130, respectively. Id. In its papers, Petitioner asserted that the fourth petition challenging claims of the ’380 patent was justified because Petitions 1A and 1B rely on a primary reference to which Patent Owner has “raised a priority date issue” and Petition 2B, in contrast to Petition 2A, addresses claims that are in means-plus-function format. Id. at 2–4 (quoting Microsoft Corp. v. IPA Techs., Inc., IPR2019- 00810, Paper 12 at 15 (PTAB Oct. 16, 2019)).” slip op. at 2
Discretionary denial - Google LLC v. Uniloc 2017 LLCRehearing deniedPTAB · Sep 9, 2020 · IPR2020-00448 · APJ Scott Raevsky · IPR · Rehearing
The Board denied Google's rehearing request, leaving in place its discretionary denial of institution based on the duplicative parallel petitions and small number of claims.
RulingsRehearing decision- RehearingRehearing, deniedDenied
“II. LEGAL STANDARDS When rehearing a decision on institution, we review the decision for an abuse of discretion. See 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c) (2019). An abuse of discretion may be indicated if a decision is based on an erroneous interpretation of law, if a factual finding is not supported by substantial evidence, or if the decision represents an unreasonable judgment in weighing relevant factors. See Star Fruits S.N.C. v. U.S., 393 F.3d 1277, 1281 (Fed. Cir. 2005). The burden of showing that the Institution Decision should be modified is on Petitioner, the party challenging the Decision. See 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d) (2019). In addition, “[t]he request must specifically identify all matters the party believes [we] misapprehended or overlooked, and the place” slip op. at 2
- Other 314aInstitution denied discretionary otherInstitution denied
“precludes filing two petitions when the challenged patent includes potentially indefinite means-plus-function language. Although it is true that we determined Petitioner did “not persuasively argue this case is analogous to [the Trial Practice Guide’s] examples,” this was only one factor in our Decision. Decision 6. Other factors we considered were that the two parallel petitions are duplicative and each addresses only a single, nearly identical claim. Id. As we explained in our Decision, Petitioner could have filed a single petition directed to both claims. Then, even if claim 3 had an unclear means-plus-function term, we still could have instituted the petition if Petitioner had met its burden on claim 1. . . . This is not the kind of situation as in other cases where the Board has denied institution when petitioners met their institution burden on only a small subset of the challenged claims. . . . . [T]he mere fact that each petition addresses a different claim is insufficient to justify filing two petitions. . . . . The highly duplicative nature of these two petitions and the small number of claims at issue further indicates that one petition should have been sufficient. Id. at 7, 8. Thus, Petitioner’s argument that we applied a bright line rule to deny the Petition overlooks the Decision’s application of multiple factors.” slip op. at 4
Discretionary denialPatents in suitUS 6,329,934
Holdings, summaries, rulings, issues, outcomes, winners and claim constructions shown for a decision were generated by a large language model reading the opinion. They are a guide to the decision, not the decision. Confirm every one against the court's own text before relying on it. Outcomes read from the patent owner’s side. Party names are extracted from the decision and are missing on about 900 short Director denials and scans, which carry the trial number instead.