Acting USPTO Director Enacts New PTAB Policy with Motorola Decision

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) acting director Coke Morgan Stewart made her first Fintiv decision by throwing out Motorola’s challenges to a rival’s body-worn camera patents. This decision comes two days after she established director authority over discretionary denial policy at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The involved patents are owned by video tech firm Stellar, which sued Motorola in August 2023 over alleged infringement of patents covering police body camera technology.

In her decision, Morgan allowed director review; vacated the board’s decision granting institution, finding the board’s Fintiv analysis to be “erroneous”; and denied institution of inter partes review.

The PTAB already agreed to review Motorola’s challenges to the validity of eight Stellar patents that include police body camera technology and in-car video systems. Just two days before the Motorola decision, she issued a memorandum to all Administrative Patent Judges of the PTAB detailing a new interim process for workload management.

Finnegan partner Forrest Jones told World IP Review  that, “It doesn’t seem like this interim bifurcated procedure for discretionary denials will create much in the way of efficiency, mainly because the strength of the petition is inherently one of the considerations for discretionary denials.”

“So, instead of three ALJs considering the merits of the petition in an institution decision, this procedure will require six ALJs and the director to consider the same thing,” he said.

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