Sharks With Freaking Laser Beams and Then Some...

by: David Nickelson, Director of Research

In my previous post, Limestone – Putting it to the Test, I utilized our Limestone research tool and found that it located prior art used by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in their Realtime Data, LLC v. Iancu decision.

As I type, we’re in the process of blind testing the results of Limestone’s Instant Validity Reports (IVRs) against hundreds of decisions finding patents invalid for reasons of lack of novelty or obviousness. We will be sharing our test results very soon, but let’s just say that our early findings are surprising even to us.

As another sneak peak, this week, I decided to look at the 3 most recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions involving section 102 anticipation using patent literature finding a patent invalid or authorizing Inter Partes Review (IPR) based upon likelihood of a section 102 showing. Each resulted in a determination by the PTAB that the petitioner had demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of showing anticipation and allowing IPR review to proceed.

I ran each patent (US 8,078,158, US 9,585,658 and US 8,449,017) through Limestone’s IVR engines.  Using the subject patents as the single input to construct my IVR query for each case, I was able to generate a corpus of patent references, for each patent, from which to review.  I surveyed the IVR corpuses to evaluate if Limestone uncovered the cited prior art in each case.  Limestone once again located the invalidating reference/s in ALL three cases. 

Lastly, I estimated how long it would have taken our team to identify, to review, to pincite, and to report the prior art references both with and without the use of Limestone’s IVR.

A quick summary:

Limestone would have substantially shortened the time for a patent research professional or attorney to locate invalidating art in these cases. IPR’s typically involve high stakes given the parties’ costs involved. In such situations, it’s even more critical to utilize the best team and the best tools to find prior art.

This is precisely what we at Techson have developed. We utilize the best team of patent research professionals in the business (the sharks), and Limestone is our laser beam.

While Dr. Evil in Austin Powers may have had to settle for ill-tempered sea bass, there’s no reason or need to settle when your business is faced with high stakes patent litigation.

Give us a call and see how we can help!

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