For our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, August 6, 2018, we will discuss a recent victory at the CAFC:

Applications In Internet Time v. RPX Corporation (CAFC July 9, 2018 available here) The Federal Circuit decided the scope of what a “real party in interest” is under 35 U.S.C. § 312. The statute mandates the petitioner must identify “all real parties in interest.” Under § 315(b) a “petitioner, real party in interest, or privy of the petitioner” may not file for an IPR if more than 1 year has passed since being served with a lawsuit for patent infringement.

In this case, Salesforce was being sued for patent infringement by AIT. The time-limit for Salesforce to file for an IPR ran out, shortly after RPX filed IPRs on the patents asserted against Salesforce. The PTAB found Saleforce was not a real party in interest and that RPX was not a privy but just a proxy for technology companies in general. The Federal Circuit disagreed and remanded the case back to the PTAB. Said the court,  “[t]he Board’s decisions in this case neither considered the full range of relationships under § 315(b) and the common law that could make Salesforce a real party in interest with respect to this IPR nor properly applied the principles articulated in the Trial Practice Guide upon which it purported to rely. The Board also failed to comply with its obligations under the APA to consider the evidence that justifies and detracts from its conclusions and to explain sufficiently its rationale for rejecting AIT’s arguments and theories.”

Additionally we will discuss the:

Brief for Appellee 

Opening Brief for Appellant 

Reply brief 

We will also discuss  RPX v. Chanabond (January 17, 2018 available here)

In this case, the CAFC found RPX lacked article III standing to appeal a decision of patent validity. The court focused on the fact that although Chanabond had sued others for infringement, they had never sued RPX, thus RPX suffered no concrete injury.

All are invited to join us on Monday July 30, 2018, at noon in our Westlake Village office. This activity is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit. If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Anneliese Lomonaco by 9 am Monday morning.