EchoStar filed a request for reexamination (March 25, 2011) of  patent 6,208,636 currently assigned to Northpoint Technology. The patent is the subject of a suit filed in July 2009 by Northpoint against defendants DIRECTV, EchoStar and Dish Network in the Western District of Texas. Accused products identified in the complaint include defendants’ set-top box products. EchoStar’s petition is based on claim construction arguments made by Northpoint.  A claim construction hearing was held on March 3, 2011. Last year, 780 requests for reexamination were submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). According to the PTO, since 1981, 23% of reexaminations resulted in confirmation of the patentability of all claims, 12% resulted in cancellation of all claims, and 65% resulted in confirmation of some of the claims with changes.