Micron, Dell, HP win appeal over conflict claims tied to US patent official

Aug 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rulings for Micron (MU.O), Dell (DELL.N) and HP (HPQ.N), finding that the decisions could stand even though the attorney who represented the tech companies later became the office's director.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the companies' adversary in the USPTO case, patent owner Unification Technologies, had not shown that Kathi Vidal's previous participation in the case influenced the administrative judges who invalidated its patents.

Unification's lead attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. Micron, Dell and HP's attorney Linda Coberly of Winston & Strawn and a USPTO spokesperson declined to comment.

Unification sued Micron, Dell and HP for infringing the patents, which relate to managing and deleting data in memory chips, in Texas federal court in 2020. The HP and Dell cases have since been dismissed, while the Micron case is ongoing.

The tech companies -- represented by Vidal, then a partner at Winston & Strawn -- asked the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to invalidate the patents later that year. President Joe Biden nominated Vidal to head the office in 2021 and she was confirmed in 2022, after which she recused herself from the case.

The board invalidated Unification's patents later that year. Unification argued at the Federal Circuit that the case improperly required PTAB judges to "evaluat[e] the arguments of their boss" and said they were "monetarily disincentivized" from ruling against Vidal because she reviews their performance.

U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Chen wrote for a three-judge panel on Friday that Unification "provided no evidence that the Director controls [PTAB judge] bonuses or performance reviews," and that a PTAB judge would have no reason to think that their decision "could affect their bonus determination because of the way that the Director might react."

The case is Unification Technologies LLC v. Micron Technology Inc, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 23-1348.