The US Patent Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board has issued its first precedential opinion in an AIA post-grant proceeding, Securebuy, LLC v. CardinalCommerce Corp., CBM2014-00035, Paper 12. Petitioner SecureBuy had filed a civil action seeking declaratory judgment, and had later petitioned for covered business method review (a process similar to post-grant review). The relevant statute, 35 U.S.C. § 325(a)(1), stated that a post-grant review could not be instituted if a civil action challenging the validity of the subject patent had been previously filed; however, the statute was unclear on whether it applied to the covered business method patent review process. The Board found that it did and denied SecureBuy’s petition.
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