Chevron settles oil patent dispute
Major oil companies’ joint subsidiary had sued over an oil lubricant patent | USPTO director declined a PTAB review in the case.
Chevron has resolved a long-running dispute with a joint subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil over an oil lubricant patent.
On Monday, 14 November, Chevron Oronite, a subsidiary of the carmaker, and Infineum, a joint venture owned by the two oil companies, agreed to dismiss the suit with prejudice.
The dismissal follows two trips to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and was remanded by the US Supreme Court.
In January last year, Chevron Oronite prevailed in the dispute before the Federal Circuit which upheld the invalidation of a patent owned by Infineum.
Back in 2018, Infineum accused Chevron Oronite of infringing US patent number 6,723,685, which covers lubricating oil compositions and their use in internal combustion engines.
Chevron Oronite then successfully challenged the validity of the patent at the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
On appeal, the Federal Circuit dismissed Infineum’s claims that the PTAB decision lacked substantial supporting evidence and rejected Infineum’s constitutional challenge, which cited the Federal Circuit’s October 2019 decision in Arthrex.
Infineum filed a petition with the US Supreme Court and, in December last year, the court vacated and remanded the decision for further consideration in light of Arthrex.
In Arthrex, the Supreme Court confirmed that judges for the PTAB act as unconstitutional principal officers, and should therefore have been appointed by the US President. To resolve this, the Supreme Court held that inter partes review decisions by administrative patent judges should be reviewable by the US Patent and Trademark Office director.
Following the Supreme Court’s remand of the Infineum suit, the USPTO director was given the opportunity to consider reviewing the PTAB’s decision. The director declined and the Federal Circuit proceeded to address Infineum’s challenges to the PTAB’s decision.
“Because substantial evidence supports the board’s determination of obviousness, we affirm,” said the Federal Circuit in its August 2022 decision.
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