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IP News

By Jeffrey S. Ginsberg and Wyatt Delfino
June 02, 2014

Federal Circuit: Only Patent Owner May Appeal a PTAB Reexamination Decision

On April 24, 2014, a unanimous panel of the Federal Circuit, comprising Chief Judge Rader and Judges Linn and Taranto, issued an opinion in Vaillancourt v. Becton Dickinson and Co., Case No. 2013-1408. The opinion was authored by Chief Judge Rader. In it, the panel dismissed Michael Vaillancourt's appeal of a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board) because Vaillancourt no longer owned the patent at issue.

Vaillancourt obtained ownership of the patent at issue in 2005, and in 2010, Becton Dickinson (BD) requested an inter partes reexamination of that patent. During the reexamination, the examiner rejected all of the patent claims, and Vaillancourt appealed the rejection to the Board. While the appeal was pending, Vaillancourt assigned the patent to VLV Associates, Inc. (VLV), which subsequently initiated a suit against BD in the District of New Jersey. In that suit, VLV sued in its own name, and did not join Vaillancourt.

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