March 20, 2012 - The judge denied the defendants’, Astoria Federal Savings and Loan Association and Diebold, motion to stay the proceedings until the Federal Circuit resolved an appeal by the plaintiff, Automated Transactions [NPE], involving some of the same patents in suit in another case, thereby requiring the defendants to continue to litigate the entirety of the case before them.  In short, the judge held that while the plaintiffs are not able to challenge the finality of a decision made in another case, “The pendency of an appeal does not alter the preclusive effect of an otherwise final ruling.”  The court went on to elaborate that, “Even assuming the binding effect of [the other case’s] claim construction,” the defendants are still required to demonstrate that their accused products are “materially indistinguishable” from the products in the other case.  Automated Transactions has filed several litigations against a multitude of defendants, including banks and convenient stores, over 13 patents related to ATM transactions, 12 of which are continuations of the 6,945,457 patent.  The patents were originally assigned to Transaction Holdings and later exclusively licensed to Automated Transactions.  The current appeal before the Federal Circuit involves the rejection of a few of the ‘457 patent claims following an ex parte reexamination.