PTAB Precedential Ruling: Expert Declaration Devoid Of Supporting Evidence Dooms IPR Petition

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently rejected an inter partes review petition that relied on a conclusory and unsupported expert declaration. The expert's written testimony, which repeated portions of the petition verbatim, did not provide the necessary evidence to support the conclusion that one of skill would have understood the prior art as either teaching a limitation or rendering obvious the claims at issue.

A petitioner challenged all claims of a patent directed to a mobile ticketing system for detecting fraudulent activity. That patent's sole independent claim included a limitation that required associating certain data with a user's account if fraudulent activity was identified. A prior art reference disclosed a system where a user was blocked from further activity if fraudulent activity was identified. According to the Petitioner, one of skill in the art would have (1) understood that the limitation was necessarily taught by the prior art reference,