Sman, a knowledgeable friend enlightened me. As Paul Harvey,s famous radio program used to start off with and “now the rest of the story”.
That article is dated Oct 9, 2015 and is based on a decision of the PTAB that was issued the previous day (Oct 8). MSFT subsequently filed another petition (IPR2015-01928) regarding the same patent and claims. That petition was approved on Mar 14, 2016:
“Accordingly, it is:
ORDERED that, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), an inter partes review is instituted as to claims 1, 3, and 20 of the ’494 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Jahagirdar and Schultz;”
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As noted in the article “The company has also sued Toshiba Corp., Apple Inc., Vizio Inc. and Motorola Mobility LLC in related cases” The Judge in the California Northern District Court for all of these cases, on April 7, 2016 issued the following order staying the cases (note the highlighted statements regarding IPR reviews):
“ORDER STAYING AND ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSING CASES. For the same reasons articulated in LELO, Inc. v. Standard Innovation (US) Corp. , Case No. 13-cv-01393-JD, 2014 WL 2879851 (N.D. Cal. June 24, 2014), the Court stays these cases pending completion of the IPRs that have been and may be instituted by the PTAB on the patents-in-suit. The parties jointly represent that "the PTAB has instituted 13 IPR trials to determine the validity of seven of the eight asserted patents" across these five related cases. Dkt. No. 90 at 2. On the single remaining patent, two additional pending IPR petitions are expected to be decided by June 2016. Id. at 21. Because these cases are in their infancy, the IPRs will likely simplify the issues and trial, and plaintiff has not articulated -- and the Court does not see -- any undue prejudice or clear disadvantage that would result from a stay, the Court stays these cases until the PTAB has decided the 13 IPRs that have been instituted (as well as the additional two IPRs, should the PTAB decide to institute those as well). The parties are ordered to file joint status updates every 90 days from the date of this order, and within three days of the PTAB's final written decision on the last IPR to be decided. In light of the length of time the parties expect this process to take ( see Dkt. No. 90 at 3 stating that "the PTAB is expected to issue a final written decision within one year of institution"), the Court orders these cases administratively closed in the meantime. The administrative closure is not a decision on the merits, and the cases will be ordered re-opened once the IPR process has concluded and the stays have been lifted. Signed by Judge James Donato on 4/7/2016. (This is a text-only entry. There is no document associated with this entry.) (jdlc2S, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 4/7/2016)
