Not All Expirations [Re] Secured Settled Expectations For Petitioner

Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart's decision in Omnivision Technologies, Inc. v. Re Secured Networks, LLC, IPR2025-01019, Paper 14 (PTAB Oct. 10, 2025) serves as an illustration of circumstances in which a patent owner retains settled expectations, even when the contested patent has expired. Specifically, the Acting Director denied institution of an IPR where the challenged patent had been in force for seventeen years and expired three years prior to the petition filing. The Director found that the twenty years that had passed since the patent issued created "strong settled expectations," and dismissed two arguments made by Petitioner. First, the Director found that petitioner's filing of an action for declaratory judgment of noninfringement three months earlier undermined its claim that it did not expect enforcement of the patent. Second, the Director found petitioner's argument that it believed it was licensed "unsupported." The petitioner argued that it