{"id":1984,"date":"2018-03-13T11:38:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T15:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1984"},"modified":"2018-03-25T11:38:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T15:38:46","slug":"collateral-estoppel-applies-in-iprs-where-the-issues-are-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1984","title":{"rendered":"Collateral Estoppel Applies in IPRs Where the Issues are the Same"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafc.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opinions-orders\/17-1193.Opinion.3-9-2018.1.PDF\">Nestle USA, Inc. v. Steuben Foods, Inc.<\/a>, [2017-1193] (March 13, 2018), the Federal Circuit vacated the Board&#8217;s construction of &#8220;aseptic&#8221; in U.S. Patent No. 6,481,468 because of collateral estoppel considerations, and remanded for further proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Circuit noted that Nestle had previously appealed the construction of &#8220;aseptic&#8221; in\u00a0another IPR involving a related patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,945,013), and in that case, the Federal Circuit vacated the<br \/>\nBoard\u2019s construction, relying on binding lexicography in\u00a0the specification for \u201caseptic\u201d to construe the term to\u00a0mean the \u201cFDA level of aseptic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Circuit explained that\u00a0collateral estoppel protects a party from having to\u00a0litigate issues that have been fully and fairly tried in a\u00a0previous action and adversely resolved against a party opponent, and that it is\u00a0well established that collateral estoppel applies in the administrative<br \/>\ncontext.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit said that it was undisputed that the claims at issue in the two\u00a0appeals use the term \u201caseptic\u201d (or its related variation<br \/>\n\u201caseptically disinfecting\u201d) in a similar fashion.\u00a0 More critically, the Federal Circuit said,\u00a0the two patents also provide identical lexicography<br \/>\nfor the term \u201caseptic\u201d in their specifications.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Circuit concluded that\u00a0collateral estoppel protects\u00a0Nestl\u00e9 and obviates the need to revisit an issue that was\u00a0already resolved against Steuben Foods. The Federal Circuit said that\u00a0collateral estoppel is not<br \/>\nlimited \u201cto patent claims that are identical; it is\u00a0the identity of the issues that were litigated that determines\u00a0whether collateral estoppel should apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Nestle USA, Inc. v. Steuben Foods, Inc., [2017-1193] (March 13, 2018), the Federal Circuit vacated the Board&#8217;s construction of &#8220;aseptic&#8221; in U.S. Patent No. 6,481,468 because of collateral estoppel considerations, and remanded for further proceedings. The Federal Circuit noted &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1984\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collateral-estoppel","category-inter-partes-review"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1985,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984\/revisions\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}