On January 8, 2018, the Federal Circuit ruled en banc that judicial review is available for a patent owner to challenge the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s determination that a petitioner satisfied the timeliness requirement governing petitions for Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) codified in 35 U.S.C. § 315(b). At its core, the opinion provides that if the Director of the PTO initiates an IPR ruling in contravention of the statute of limitations, an Article III court has the power to review that initiating decision.
By way of background, Broadcom Corp. filed three separate petitions for IPR in 2013 pertaining to certain patents owned by Ericsson. During the pendency of the IPR, Ericsson transferred ownership of the patents to Wi-Fi One, LLC (“Wi-Fi”). In opposition to Broadcom’s petitions, Wi-Fi contended that the Director lacked authority under Section 315(b) and was precluded from initiating review on any of the three petitions because Broadcom was in privity with certain defendants that were found to have infringed the asserted claims in a jury trial in the Eastern District of Texas. Accordingly, Wi-Fi asserted that the petitions were time-barred under 315(b) because Ericsson (the prior patent owner) had already brought infringement claims against defendants that were in privity with Broadcom more than a year prior to its petitions. Ultimately, the Board instituted IPR on the subject claims, and issued final decisions holding that the claims were unpatentable. In those decisions, the Board held that Wi-Fi had not demonstrated privity between Broadcom on the one hand, and the defendants in the Eastern District of Texas litigation on the other hand, and as a result, the petitions were not time-barred under 315(b). Wi-Fi appealed those final decisions, contending that the Federal Circuit should reverse the Board’s time-bar determinations. A panel of the Federal Circuit disagreed, holding that Section 315(b)’s time-bar rulings are non-appealable and unreviewable.
On Wi-Fi’s petition for rehearing en banc, the Federal Circuit granted Wi-Fi’s request and considered whether judicial review is available for a patent owner to challenge the Board’s determination that the petitioner satisfied the timeliness requirement of 35 U.S.C. 315(b). Section
35 U.S.C. 315(b) provides that: “an inter partes review may not be instituted if the petition requesting the proceeding is filed more than 1 year after the date on which the petitioner, real party in interest, or privy of the petitioner is served with a complaint alleging infringement of the patent.”
After analyzing the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (which created IPR proceedings), the Administrative Procedures Act (codifying the governing standards applicable to final decisions of the PTO), and the pertinent statutes, the Federal Circuit held that it will “abdicate judicial review only when Congress provides a ‘clear and convincing’ indication that it intends to prohibit review.” In Wi-Fi One, however, the Court held that there was no clear and convincing indication of such congressional intent to overcome the presumption in favor of judicial review of agency actions. Accordingly, the Federal Circuit remanded the case to the merits panel, affording Wi-Fi with an opportunity to have its arguments heard on the merits, to wit, whether Broadcom’s challenge to the subject patents were time-barred.