By Matthew L. Cutler, Principal

The Board denied an interesting attack from Patent Owner who suggested that Petitioner’s argument, that the patent-at-issue was not entitled to the priority date of its parent, was barred in inter partes review proceedings because it is based on 35 U.S.C. § 112. SAP America, Inc. v. Pi-Net International, Inc. IPR2014-00414, involving US Patent No. 8,346,894; and parent patent, US Patent No. 8,037,158.

Petitioner argued that the subject matter of the challenged claims of the ‘894 patent were not disclosed in the parent ‘158 patent in a manner sufficient to meet the requirements of 35 USC §112, first paragraph. Order at 11. As such, per Petitioner, the ‘894 claims were not entitled to the priority date of the ‘158 parent patent.  Specifically, Patent Challenger argued that negative limitations in some of the ‘894 claims were not disclosed in the ‘158 parent specification. Id.

Patent Owner’s Preliminary Response argued that the petition exceeded the scope of inter partes review (which allows only challenges under 35 USC §102 and §103) by including an analysis under §112 in the challenge.

The Board began its analysis by noting that there is a difference between arguing that a claim is unpatentable based on §112 inadequate written description grounds and arguing that a claim is not entitled to a given priority date based on §112 grounds.  Further, Patent Owner provided no arguments on the merits against Petitioner’s assertions of lack of written description in the parent ‘158 patent.  Accordingly, after dismissing inapplicable case law cited by Patent Owner because of this distinction, the Board agreed with Petitioner and found that the ‘894 challenged claims were not entitled to the priority date of the ‘158 patent because the ‘158 patent did not provide an adequate written description of the challenged claims.