In a decision that could significantly extend the estoppel effects of 35 USC § 315(e), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) found that estoppel applies to all real parties in interest of an inter partes review (IPR) petition if even one of those petitioners was also party to an earlier-filed petition resulting in a final written decision. Kofax, Inc. v. Uniloc USA, Inc., Case No. IPR2015-1207 (PTAB, July 20, 2016) (Praiss, APJ).

Section 315(e) states that a “petitioner in an inter partes review of a claim in a patent under this chapter that results in a final written decision . . . may not request or maintain a proceeding before the Office with respect to that claim on any ground that the petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised during that inter partesreview.” This provision extends to any “real party in interest or privy of the petitioner.”

This case arises out of a series of IPR petitions challenging the same patent. The earliest such petition, IPR2014-1453, listed Sega, Ubisoft, Kofax and Cambium Learning Group as petitioners. The PTAB instituted a trial on the 1453 petition. While the 1453 trial was pending, Kofax filed a second petition, IPR2015-1207, for the same patent (the Kofax petition). Kofax was the only listed petitioner. After the PTAB instituted trial on the Kofax petition, Ubisoft, Zebra Technologies and Cambium filed a follow-on petition and requested joinder. 

Before resolving the joinder motion and before issuing a final decision on the Kofax petition, the PTAB issued a final written decision in the earlier-filed 1453 petition. Subsequently, the PTAB dismissed the Kofax petition, determining that under § 315(e), Kofax was estopped from maintaining its petition because it could have raised these grounds in the earlier-filed 1453 petition. Estoppel also applied to Ubisoft and Cambium as real parties in interest to the 1453 petition. Although Zebra was not itself a petitioner in the earlier 1453 proceeding, the PTAB found that estoppel also applied to Zebra because Zebra was a real party in interest with Ubisoft and Cambium in the follow-on petition. 

The PTAB was not persuaded by Zebra’s argument that estoppel should be limited to petitioners and real parties in interest to proceedings that result in a final decision. The PTAB explained that § 315(e) does not contain any “temporal limitation for real parties in interest or privies of a petition,” and so the estoppel provisions also extend to all real parties in interest of petitioners in the earlier proceeding. According to the PTAB, Zebra’s eventual status as a real party in interest to a now-estopped petitioner would bring the same estoppel effect as if Zebra had itself been listed as a real party in interest in the earlier-filed 1453 petition. The PTAB also denied that Zebra was deprived of its due process rights, explaining that Zebra “had the opportunity to address [in the follow-on] proceedings the effect of estoppel in view of the final written decision in IPR2014-01453.”