Third Post-Arthrex Grant Of Director Review Issued

On March 3, 2022, Andrew Hirshfeld, the Commissioner for Patents and acting Director of the USPTO, issued the third post-Arthrex grant of Director Review for two separate Final Written Decisions issued by the PTAB based on a Federal Circuit claim construction in a related case that ran counter to the PTAB's construction.

The '635 Patent pertains to a unified system of programming communication and its challenged claims relate to the methods of controlling the decryption of programming at a subscriber station or a receiver station. On September 19, 2017 and February 15, 2018, Apple Inc. filed two separate petitions to institute a review of claims of the '635 Patent. See Apple Inc. v. Personalized Media Communications, LLC, IPR2016-01520 and IPR2016-00754.. Trial was instituted, and in the Final Written Decisions, the PTAB found that twelve of the challenged claims Patent were unpatentable as obvious or anticipated. See id.