According to Propel, a petition for inter partes review has been formally accepted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office
On November 22, Propel Orthodontics LLC (New York, New York) issued a press release regarding a dispute with claims to patent by rival company OrthoAccel Technologies Inc. (Bellaire, Texas):
In an effort to open the market to greater competition among vibratory orthodontic devices, Propel Orthodontics, LLC announced that the Patent Trial and Appeals Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office formally accepted today a Petition for Inter Partes Review (IPR) under the America Invents Act (AIA) to cancel all claims of a patent owned by rival OrthoAccel Technologies, Inc.
In enacting the AIA, Congress entrusted the Patent Office to address the detrimental effect that bad patents can have on innovation. As Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) noted when he sponsored the AIA, inter partes review proceedings are used by the Patent Office to “screen out bad patents.”
“Although OrthoAccel Technologies has never accused Propel of infringing this patent, and we don’t, we nevertheless believe it’s important to get rid of the bad patents that OrthoAccel has used to erect barriers to competition in the market for vibratory orthodontic devices,” said Mr. Bryce Way, CEO of Propel. We’re happy to be doing our part to improve patent quality among U.S. medical device patents,” said Mr. Way, who further noted that: “This is just our first AIA challenge to the AcceleDent® patents. We’ll be filing more IPRs soon to invalidate all of OrthoAccel’s patents. For example, OrthoAccel recently filed a lawsuit alleging that Propel infringes one of its other patents. While we don’t infringe that patent, we believe that it is invalid and deserves review by the Patent Office.”
The Inter Partes Review proceeding is docketed as Case No. IPR2017-00239 before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and seeks to invalidate U.S. Patent No. 8,500,446, which was purportedly invented by OrthoAccel’s Chief Executive Officer, Michael K. Lowe. Propel’s IPR petition is publicly available at this link.
