Fed Circuit vacates IPR decision in semiconductor dispute
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has vacated a decision which found that several claims of patent owned by semiconductor manufacturing company, Power Integrations, were invalid.
In a judgment yesterday, June 13, the court vacated a decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office’s ( USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board, holding that the inter partes review (IPR) was time-barred.
The dispute dates to 2009, when Power Integrations sued a competitor, Fairchild Semiconductor, for infringing its patent (US number 6,212,079).
Later in 2015, semiconductor maker ON Semiconductor purchased Fairchild.
Before the acquisition of Fairchild was complete, on September 19, 2016, ON Semiconductor filed a petition for an IPR of the ‘079 patent.
Then, on September 23 the USPTO issued its decision to institute the IPR.
Power Integrations had challenged the IPR. It said that under US law, an IPR may not be instituted if a petition requesting the review is filed more than one year after the petitioner is served with a patent infringement complaint.
It said that Fairchild was a real party in interest (RPI) when the IPR was instituted, and as it had been more than a year since the patent infringement complaint was filed, the IPR was time-barred.
But the USPTO found there was “insufficient evidence” to establish a contractually-bound relationship between Fairchild and ON at the time the petition for inter partes review was filed.
Yesterday, the Federal Circuit reversed this decision.
The court found Fairchild was a real party in interest (RPI) at the time the inter partes review was instituted.
It said this meant the inter partes review was time-barred, and should not have been instituted.
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