SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has persuaded the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to largely invalidate two patents on software activation technology that had generated settlements with a broad range of other technology players.
The PTAB ruled that Apple Inc. did not wait too long to file for inter partes review, even though the patentee had sued an iPhone application developer more than a year earlier. Patentee Achates Reference Publishing Inc. had argued that Apple has a “substantive legal relationship” with codefendant QuickOffice Inc., and the two were using it do an end run around rules and time limits for inter partes review set out in the America Invents Act.
