No Sua Sponte Remand For Erroneously Limited Post-SAS Final Written Decisions

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that, post-SAS, it possessed jurisdiction to hear an appeal from an inter partes review (IPR) even where the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred in limiting its institution decision to less than all the challenged claims and grounds. PGS Geophysical AS v. Iancu, Case Nos. 16-2470; -2472; -2474 (Fed. Cir., June 7, 2018) (Taranto, J).

PGS Geophysical is the patent owner of methods and systems directed toward marine seismic surveying. A competitor filed three separate IPRs against PGS's patent. The PTAB instituted all three petitions, but only for some of the claims and not on all asserted grounds. PGS initially appealed the findings of the PTAB's final written decisions (FWDs) as to obviousness, but during the pendency of the appeal, the parties settled. Director Iancu intervened to defend the PTAB's decisions, however.