Director Vidal designates precedential decision concerning abandonment of contest

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Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Director Vidal designates precedential decision concerning abandonment of contest

Apple Inc. v. Zipit Wireless, Inc., IPR2021-01124 et al., Paper 14 (December 21, 2022) 

In Apple Inc. v. Zipit Wireless, Inc., in a precedential decision on sua sponte Director review addressing adverse judgments in four proceedings, the Director determined it was not sufficiently clear that Patent Owner intended to abandon the contest when Patent Owner’s counsel stated that “[i]f the Board determines that [Petitioner] ha[s] met their burden of proof with respect to those claims [Patent Owner] hasn’t filed any opposition.” Instead, the Director stated that Patent Owner’s non-opposition was contingent on the Board determining that Petitioner met its burden of proving that the challenged claims are unpatentable. As such, the Director vacated the Board’s adverse judgments and remanded the proceedings back to the panel to issue a show cause order clarifying whether Patent Owner is indeed abandoning the contest or to issue a final written decision addressing the patentability of the challenged claims. 

Learn more about PTAB precedential and informative decisions and the status of Director review requests.

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