President and Fellows of Harvard College v. GlobalFoundries U.S., Inc.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) continued to see petitions for AIA review filed against prolific litigants in July, including a wave of petitions against Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited across four separate campaigns, with petitions also brought against General Patent Corporation, Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg, and Quarterhill Inc. Meanwhile, throughout July, the Board instituted trial for inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed in semiconductor campaigns waged by Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology, with trial also instituted in campaigns related to network data compression (Realtime Data LLC), servers and data management (IV), and anti-malware technology (Finjan Holdings, Inc.). Final decisions issued by the Board in July included one that cancelled claims from a patent that has been asserted by Rothschild Connected Devices Innovations, LLC, an NPE controlled by inventor Leigh M. Rothschild, against more than 60 defendants.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw 54 petitions for AIA review brought against NPEs in May, up from 20 such petitions filed in April. May PTAB filings included a resurgence in petitions against publicly traded NPEs, including Acacia Research Corporation; Pendrell Corporation; Quest Patent Research Corporation; VoIP-Pal.com, Inc.; Xperi Corporation (f/k/a Tessera Holding Corporation); and Wi-LAN Inc. (WiLAN) (which was renamed to Quarterhill Inc. on June 1). A variety of private litigants were also hit by PTAB petitions in May, including Blackbird Tech LLC, Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd., General Patent Corporation, Realtime Data LLC, and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited.

Harvard University has started a new semiconductor campaign, asserting a family of patents generally related to vapor deposition of thin film insulators against GlobalFoundries (1:16-cv-11252) and Micron (1:16-cv-11249). In two separate lawsuits filed by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, one of the university’s two governing boards, Harvard accuses the companies of infringement through their use of atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes and materials for the manufacture of processors (GlobalFoundries) and DRAM chips (Micron). Harvard has asserted all three patents in the family against GlobalFoundries (6,969,539; 7,507,848; 8,334,016), while Micron is alleged to infringe just the ‘539 and ‘016 patents. The plaintiff entity, commonly known as the Harvard Corporation, is the oldest corporation in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, with a charter signed in 1650.