The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) had an eventful April, capped by two US Supreme Court decisions addressing inter partes review (IPR). While the Court found IPR constitutional in Oil States Energy Services, in its companion decision in SAS Institute, the Court also barred the PTAB’s practice of instituting trial as to a subset of the challenged claims (partial institution decisions). As a result, since those April 24 opinions, the PTAB has begun to institute trial for all challenged claims for IPR petitions where the petitioner is likely to prevail as to at least one claim (and for all petitioned grounds, a practice not required by SAS Institute). Among the affected IPRs instituted in late April were two against Lone Star Silicon Innovations LLC, while the PTAB saw IPR petitions filed in April against Oyster Optics, LLC and Uniloc Corporation Pty. Limited. The Board also issued final decisions throughout April in IPRs against ChriMar Systems, Inc.; Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd.; Papst Licensing GmbH & Company Kg; Skky, Inc.; and Uniloc.

Asserting multiple patents issuing to it in the latter half of 2015, inventor-backed NPE Skky, LLC has added a case against Facebook and Instagram (0:16-cv-00094) to the litigation campaign begun back in 2013. Nine earlier cases asserted a single patent (7,548,875) generally related to mobile playback of compressed audio and video files. Three of the nine defendants—General Media Communications (GMC), MindGeek (Manwin), and Playboy—filed an August 2014 petition for inter partes review (IPR), with trial instituted and a final decision expected within weeks. Skky has now asserted nine more patents (8,892,465; 9,037,502; 9,118,693; 9,124,717; 9,124,718; 9,203,870; 9,203,956; 9,215,310; 9,219,810), all related to the ‘875 patent, in its most recent case against Facebook.