A covered business method (CBM) review is a tool that the America Invents Act (AIA) created to allow entities charged with infringement of a CBM patent to challenge the patent's validity. A recent decision from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) shows that the "charged with infringement" requirement must be satisfied, or the PTAB will deny the petition.
In Ocean Tomo LLC v Patent Ratings LLC, the PTAB considered a CBM petition against a patent that was part of a license agreement to Ocean Tomo. Ocean Tomo filed a declaratory judgment action against the patent holder (Patent Ratings) on several grounds, including a count seeking declaratory judgment of non-breach of the license agreement. Ocean Tomo then filed a petition for CBM review of the patent.
The PTAB denied the petition, noting that Ocean Tomo had not been charged with infringement of the patent, and its declaratory judgment action did not include a count seeking a declaration of non-infringement. Instead, the PTAB found that "[t]he parties' contract, tort, and related causes of action concern and arise from the fractured employment and business relationship between Petitioner and ... Patent Owner, not from charges of infringement of the '849 patent." On that basis, the PTAB denied the petition.
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