Netlist Wins Big in Two Final PTAB Decisions
03.15.16
McAndrews, Held & Malloy announced today that, in two final written decisions, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruled in favor of its client Netlist, a leading provider of high-performance, logic-based computer memory systems, after finding Smart Modular Technologies failed to show a preponderance of evidence that any claim was unpatentable. The decisions were issued on March 9, 2016.
In the rulings, two PTAB panels found that petitioner Smart Modular did not show the patents were obvious in light of prior art. The decisions uphold two of Netlist’s patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 8,001,434 and 8,359,501, relating to self-testing electronic memory modules. With these latest results, the PTAB has now conducted two full inter partes reviews of both patents and twice confirmed their validity.
According to a release distributed by Netlist, the ‘434 and ‘501 patents are part of a seven-patent lawsuit Netlist filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California against a SanDisk and Diablo Technologies product called ULLtraDIMM. In response, SanDisk, Diablo and Smart Modular filed a total of 17 IPRs attempting to invalidate seven of Netlist’s patents. Netlist has now been successful in defending five of the seven asserted patents.
Netlist is represented by McAndrews attorneys Christopher Winslade, Thomas Wimbiscus, Scott McBride, Wayne Bradley, Gregory Schodde and Ronald Spuhler.
McAndrews has one of the most active dockets of AIA trial proceedings of any law firm in the United States. The firm was listed in Docket Navigator’s “Year in Review 2014” as one of the “top law firms in the PTAB.” In addition, four McAndrews attorneys, including Wimbiscus and McBride, were listed among the most active IPR practitioners in the country.