Founded almost three years ago, the Patent Trial Appeal Board ("PTAB") has exploded in popularity as the venue of choice for challenging patent validity. This week, the PTAB reached a symbolic, but nevertheless real milestone: exceeding a quarter million document filings in the court. These documents represent the numerous opinions, motions, petitions, and exhibits filed by the PTAB, Patent Owners, and Petitioners. Despite being largely symbolic, it nevertheless underscores the fact that the PTAB has now become the most active patent venue in the country.
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Commercial banks, investment banks, brokerages, and other
financial institutions spend an inordinate amount of time on due diligence:
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There are hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies filed every
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past. Using Docket Alarm’s API, searches
can be automated, leading to an enormous savings in efficiency over manual
searching.
In addition to bankruptcies, Docket Alarm automates access to court
records involving your clients' and debtors’ litigation. Trackers can be
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Docket Alarm automates your due diligence by pushing the
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Back in February of 2014, German sportswear giant Adidas filed
a patent infringement suit against competitor Under Armour, Inc. in United
States District Court for the District of Delaware.
Adidas
accused Under Armour and its newly acquired fitness tracker subsidiary, MapMyFitness,
Inc., of infringing ten of its patents. These patents cover technology used in
Adidas’ line of fitness tracker devices, known as miCoach, that coaches users
in real time during their workouts. Adidas alleges that Under Armour and MapMyFitness
utilize similar technology in their line of fitness tracker products, Armour39,
which includes a module, chest strap, watch, supporting software and mobile
app.
While the case is still ongoing, Under Armour recently filed
several
petitions for Inter Partes Review
(IPR) with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), challenging the validity
of multiple claims in three of the ten Adidas patents they are accused of
infringing— U.S.
Patent No. 8,725,276, U.S.
Patent No. 8,721,502 , and U.S.
Patent No. 8,652,009.
These IPR petitions challenge claims concerning GPS,
athletic performance tracking, route recommendation and more, on the grounds of
anticipation and obviousness. Under Armour cites numerous prior art references in
each IPR petition supporting their contention that much of the technology
relied upon by Adidas in securing patent protection was already well known in
the prior art.
Of Under Armour’s nine petitions, two have instituted, two
have been denied, and four are currently pending a decision from the PTAB. To be
notified of the PTAB’s decision on whether to institute Under Armour’s IPR
petitions, click the “Track Docket” on each IPR docket (IPR2015-01528,
IPR2015-01531,
IPR2015-01532, IPR2015-00688).
The email alert includes a summary of the update and a PDF attachment of the
filing. To set up email alerts for Adidas’ pending federal suit, click the
“Track Docket” button on this
page.
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Terms and connectors searching allow users to string
together multiple complex queries. Say you are searching for §112 issues in a
patent case. You may search for “written description invalidity” to find
relevant information. However, this search will return any result that uses
those three words. By using terms and connectors, you can narrow your query:
(written w/3 description) w/10 invalidity. This query indicates that you
are looking for results where the word “description” appears within three words
of “written”, and “invalidity” appears within ten words of that combination.
Terms and connectors searching is also helpful in finding
cases whose characteristics match your own. For example, if you are involved in
a case dealing with first amendment rights around displaying the confederate
flag, you may construct a terms and connectors query that looks like this:
This query will return results that have the word amendment
appearing within 3 words of the word first, the word flag appearing within
three words of the word confederate, and with the latter appearing within 50
words of the former. Results for this query will include a variety of discussions
involving the elements of first amendment rights and the confederate flag without
limiting the scope of the search to cases with exact language.
Advanced PTAB Search
Using Filters
Docket Alarm is the only research platform that has a
dedicated Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) search engine. The PTAB search
engine has multiple filters to make it easy to find decisions on specific
topics. Users can utilize outcome filters to narrow search results to
particular motions in PTAB cases. For example, searching “outcome:(joinder)”
will return all decisions on a motion for joinder, while “outcome:(sanction)”
will return all decisions on a motion for sanctions.
Check
out this order where the court approved the filing of a motion for
sanctions by petitioner, Square, Inc. Square alleged that the patent owner sent
a harassing email to its expert witness, threatening to publicly shame and file
legal action against the witness if he did not withdraw his testimony.
Sign up today to start
using Docket Alarm’s advanced search queries and filters to simplify your legal
research.
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Docket Alarm is an advanced search and litigation tracking service for the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB), the International Trade Commission (ITC), Bankruptcy Courts, and Federal Courts across the United States. Docket Alarm searches and tracks millions of dockets and documents for thousands of users.
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