First post-grant review ends with settlement
The first-ever post-grant review proceeding at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), centring on a patent covering the Rainbow Loom bracelet, has been terminated after the parties settled the dispute.
New Jersey-based Larose Industries had asked the USPTO to review US patent 8,684,420 (‘420 patent), owned by Choon’s Design and which covers methods used to make bracelets.
Choon’s Design makes the Rainbow Loom, a plastic loom used to create colourful bracelets. The products have become highly popular among children.
When the petition was filed in August last year, it was the first time the USPTO had received a request for a post-grant review.
But, in a notice published on its website on January 1, the USPTO announced the parties had agreed to settle the case.
“On December 31, 2014, petitioner Larose Industries and patent owner Choon’s Design filed a joint motion to terminate the instant proceeding,” the office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrote.
In its petition, Larose, which makes a rival product called Cra-Z-Loom, along with toy company Toys R Us, which sells the product, had asked for a review of 14 claims in Choons’s patent.
The patent, referred to as a “Brunnian link making device and kit”, is owned by Malaysian businessman Cheong Choon Ng and his company Choon’s Design.
Larose claimed there was a lack of written detail and description in the patent’s claims.
A post-grant review, introduced as part of the America Invents Act, is a trial carried out by the PTAB to review the patentability of one or more claims in a patent.
For such a review to be accepted, the patent has to have been granted on March 16, 2013 or later.
Despite the ‘420 patent being granted on July 26, 2013, it claimed priority through a series of ‘continuing’ patent applications that dated back to November 5, 2010.
A separate Larose request for an inter partesreview of another Choon’s Design patent (US number 8,485,565) has also been dismissed. This type of review allows parties to challenge patents based on prior art.
