PTAB denies PayPal IPR of Ioengine patent
The US Patent Trial and Appeal Board ( PTAB) has denied PayPal’s request for an inter partes review of a patent, finding that the online payment company has substantial links to another company which is already challenging the patent.
The decision published yesterday, October 3, concerned a patent owned by Ioengine (US number 8,539,047 B2) titled “Apparatus, method and system for a tunneling client access point”.
In its ruling, PTAB found that the patent was currently the subject of a number of district court proceedings involving both Ioengine and PayPal. Additionally, the patent is also the subject of an inter partes review instituted by electronic transactions company Ingenico.
Ioengine had argued that a relationship exists between Ingenico and PayPal which incentivises both parties to try to invalidate claims of the ‘047 patent.
In this case, the PTAB ruled there is a significant relationship between PayPal and Ingenico.
This is because Ioengine previously sued PayPal for infringing the ‘047 patent, and Ingenico is the supplier of these allegedly infringing products
“Thus, there is significant overlap between the challenged claims in PayPal’s petition and in Ingenico’s existing inter partes review,” the board concluded.
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