Finnegan Wins Again for BMW Against Atlantic IP, This Time at the PTAB

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2025

WASHINGTON, DC—Finnegan is pleased to announce that firm client BMW of North America, LLC (“BMW”) has secured yet another victory against an Atlantic IP patent assertion entity. BMW convinced the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) to find all challenged claims of Foras Technologies Ltd. (“Foras”)’s U.S. Patent No. 7,502,958 (“the ’958 patent”) unpatentable in its recently issued Final Written Decision. The PTAB’s decision marks BMW’s most recent success in fighting off meritless claims from patent assertion entities, including other Atlantic IP entities.

Foras is an Irish patent assertion entity related to Atlantic IP Services Limited. Foras makes no products and provides no services. Instead, Foras focuses on targeting successful businesses and employers like BMW in patent litigation.

Foras sued Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (“BMW AG”) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (“W.D. Tex.”), wrongly alleging infringement of the ’958 patent and demanding money from BMW AG. However, the W.D. Tex. court stayed the case so that BMW’s invalidity challenges against the ’958 patent could first proceed before the PTAB.

BMW’s invalidity challenge at the PTAB against Foras’s ’958 patent has now succeeded. In the Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) filed by BMW, the PTAB recently found all challenged claims of the ’958 patent unpatentable in its Final Written Decision.

Additional BMW challenges aiming to invalidate other Foras patents continue to proceed. The PTAB has already instituted IPRs brought against Foras’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,627,781 (“the ’781 patent”) and 7,624,302 (“the ’302 patent”). BMW contends that all claims of both the ’781 and ’302 patents are invalid. The PTAB will issue Final Written Decisions in those IPRs in the coming year. BMW AG has also filed a declaratory judgment action against Foras in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (“E.D. Va.”). In the E.D. Va. action, BMW AG seeks to both invalidate Foras’s ’781 and ’302 patents and prove that BMW products do not infringe those patents. The E.D. Va. Court has stayed the action, while the IPRs against the ’781 and ’302 patents first proceed before the PTAB.

This victory represents yet another BMW Group success against Atlantic IP. BMW Group has already prevailed multiple times against Arigna Technology Limited, another Atlantic IP patent assertion entity. Notably, BMW Group has succeeded against all Atlantic IP patent assertion entities that have sued BMW Group entities without paying them money. And BMW’s continued invalidation of Atlantic IP’s patents serves as a warning to other patent assertion entities. Finnegan is proud to represent BMW Group as it fights off and deters such baseless and wasteful patent assertion entity lawsuits.

This case is BMW of North America, LLC, et al. v. Foras Techs. Ltd., IPR2023-01373 (PTAB).