Axinn Scores Multiple IPR Victories on Behalf of Applied Materials

On February 7, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued Final Written Decisions in four Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings in favor of Petitioner Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT). The subject patents had been asserted by Patent Owner Ocean Semiconductor LLC in ten different district court litigations filed in December of 2020 across the Western District of Texas, Eastern District of Texas, and the District of Massachusetts, targeting methods of manufacturing semiconductor products of Infineon Technologies AG, Infineon Technologies Americas Corp., MediaTek Inc., NVIDIA Corp., NXP Semiconductors N.V., NXP USA, Renesas Electronics Corp., Silicon Labs. Inc., STMicroelectronics Inc., Western Digital Techs., Inc., Huawei Device USA, Inc., Huawei Device Co., Ltd., HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd., and Analog Devices, Inc. The IPRs were instituted months before the issuance of the interim procedural Fintiv guidelines for discretionary denials by the PTO Director. Following numerous contested motions in all four proceedings, the IPR hearings took place in November of 2022, and the Board ultimately determined all 100+ challenged claims in the four patents to be unpatentable under the grounds presented.