Consumer Watchdog v. Wisconsin Alumni Research
Foundation
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed an
appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the Board) on the
grounds that the appellant, a public interest group, did not
establish sufficient injury in fact to confer Article III
standing. Consumer Watchdog v. Wisconsin Alumni Research
Foundation, Case No. 13-1377 (Fed. Cir., June 4, 2014) (Rader,
J.).
Consumer Watchdog is a public interest group that describes
itself as "providing a voice for taxpayers and consumers in
special-interest-dominated public discourse, government and
politics." It initiated an inter partes
reexamination of a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)
patent directed to embryonic stem cells, alleging that WARF's
"broad and aggressive" enforcement of this patent allows
WARF to preempt all research using embryonic stem cells.
After the Board upheld the claims in reexamination, Consumer
Watchdog appealed.
