Know Your PTAB Judges: Meet PTAB Judge Justin T. Arbes

Welcome to the first installment of Docket Alarm’s Know Your PTAB Judge newsletter. Each month, we will be featuring a profile on a different PTAB judge. This month, we are proud to feature Judge Justin T. Arbes for our kick-off edition.

Background
Judge Arbes is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law. Prior to law school, he worked as a software developer for several organizations, including the FBI, after graduating with a Computer Science degree from Michigan State University.

After finishing law school, he clerked for the Honorable Avern Cohn for the United States District Court Eastern District of Michigan. Prior to joining the bench, Judge Arbes was in private practice at several firms, including Hunton &Williams and Arnold & Porter.

PTAB Record
The Honorable Justin T. Arbes was sworn in to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on March 1, 2012. His tenure has been an active one, issuing 28 final written decisions— canceling all instituted claims in 17 petitions, canceling some claims in eight petitions, and refusing to cancel any instituted claim in three petitions.

Notable rulings include a suite of cases involving the well-known patent aggregator Intellectual Ventures Management and tech company Xilinx, Inc. Intellectual Ventures filed several petitions for Inter Partes Review (IPR) against patents owned by Xilinx. Judge Arbes, along with Judges Karl Easthom and Sally Medley, issued decisions in favor of IV’s petitions, cancelling all challenged claims in four different patents on obviousness and anticipation. Judge Arbes authored opinions for two of the four IPRs (IPR2012-00018, IPR2012-00019, IPR2012-00020 and IPR2012-00023).

The Judge also issued final written decisions in two IPRs (IPR2013-00080 and IPR2013-00081) involving computer giant, Apple against Achates Reference Publishing, Inc. Achates alleged that Apple used its partnership with developer QuickOffice, Inc. to circumvent the one year statutory time limit for filing an IPR. Judge Arbes opined that an indemnity clause in Apple’s developer agreement with QuickOffice did not create legal privity between the two companies, and that Apple’s petition for IPR was not time-barred under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b). IPR2013-00081, No. 80 Final Written Decision at 9. The court went on to cancel all of the challenged claims described in each petition on the grounds of obviousness.

Researching Judge Arbes’ Profile
Further insight can be gained by viewing Judge Arbes’ record on Docket Alarm’s statistics platform. Users can view statistics on how many petitions Judge Arbes is hearing per month, how many petitions he has instituted, final written decisions he has issued, parties and firms that have appeared before him, and much more. For example, based on an analysis of his 28 final written decisions, Judge Arbes is 24% less likely to invalidate all instituted claims than his fellow administrative patent judges. However, in the past three months, he has invalidated all claims in 71% of final written decisions issued, which is more in line with the norm.


Final Written Decision Statistics for Judge Justin Arbes

Lawyers representing both petitioners and patent owners can use this information to determine what direction their litigation strategies need to take, such as whether or not to file a petition and what claims to contest if appearing before Judge Arbes.

Related Links
-        Search all documents filed in all of Judge Arbes’ cases at the PTAB.

-        View Judge Arbes’ judicial profile, with statistics on petition grant rates and other data, click here.


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Visit Docket Alarm at LegalTech 2015



The 2015 NYC LegalTech show is fast approaching. Join us at the largest event devoted solely to law and technology, taking place February 3rd-5th at The Hilton Hotel in New York City. The LegalTech Show brings together law firms, librarians, startups, developers, and many others to showcase the latest innovations and technology in the legal industry.

Docket Alarm will be at the Stanford CodeX Pavilion showcasing its state of the art technology. Our founder, Michael Sander, will give live demonstrations of the recently unveiled PTAB Statistics Platform. Docket Alarm users can view statistics and analytics on every case coming out of the PTAB, including statistics on IPR, PGR, CBM, or DER proceedings, instituted petitions, final written decisions, motions, exhibits, judges, patent owners, petitioners, tech sectors, firms, and even individual attorneys.

You will also be able to test out Docket Alarm’s legal research and full-text search platform with its myriad of filters— you can narrow your search results by tech sector, judge, party, firm, attorney and more. Users also have access to various automation tools, including new case and opinion alerts, which send docket updates right to your inbox as frequently as you like.

Other legal startups representing a variety of sectors will also be at the CodeX pavilion. Participants include legal services referral platform Lawdingo; MeWe, creator of a collaborative workflow platform for health inspections; One400, a digital marketing agency devoted to the legal industry; cloud-based law practice management site Plainlegal; legal services platform Priori Legal; and Wizdocs, a company that streamlines transactions and document management.


Come visit our booth and hear first hand about all of the interesting innovations Docket Alarm is creating in the legal research sector.


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Filtering Search Results by Title Now Available

We've been busy at Docket Alarm evaluating your product improvement requests and implementing time-saving changes while conducting your legal research.  One new small but powerful refinement that will help  you narrow your search is an ability to filter by title.  Here is what we mean.

When you perform a search for say, "Apple v. Samsung" you get results for all dockets containing these keywords anywhere in the docket text.  While this type of broad search may help you start with a bird's eye overview, sometimes you may want to narrow the results to just docket titles that contain this text.

So where is this feature located?  In the search bar you'll notice a gear icon just before the court drop down menu.  Clicking on the icon will reveal a number of other search filters.  From there, you'll want to find the "Filter By:" section and click on the drop down menu.  The drop down menu will reveal the "title" option for you to choose.  Once you choose the title option, just type in your keywords/phrases in the search field.  Click submit and your search results will now be filtered by title only.



While this may seem like a small feature addition, it is still a very powerful time saver.  And after all, saving you time, delivering you ongoing value, and making your legal research easier and more effective is a core mission of Docket Alarm.  Try it for yourself today and keep those feature requests coming.  We are always looking for ways to improve the way you perform legal research!

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Use Docket Alarm to Supplement Your Legal Research


While major legal research providers have extensive coverage of court cases, their coverage is not comprehensive. By using Docket Alarm’s research engine in conjunction with other research providers such as Westlaw and LexisNexis, attorneys can be sure they have access to every federal docket, Patent Trial and Appeal Board docket, and International Trade Commission investigation.

Federal Courts & PACER

While some of the large legal research engines have around 160,000 documents / year in their federal case databases, Docket Alarm keep tabs on over 250,000 federal court documents each year. Docket Alarm links directly to the PACER database, enabling attorneys to search for and download new cases uploaded to PACER before they become available in other databases. This gives users immediate access to the most recent federal court decisions, motions, and exhibits.

PTAB & ITC

In addition to comprehensive federal court coverage, Docket Alarm also offers complete coverage of decisions coming out of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the International Trade Commission (ITC). Other legal research engines cover these tribunals infrequently, if at all. Docket Alarm is also the only legal research platform to offer analytics and statistics on the PTAB. These analytics can be used to help attorneys predict the outcomes of cases and develop successful litigation strategies.

Tracking and Alerts

Docket Alarm allows attorneys to stay up to date on their research through its docket tracking feature, enabling users to receive updates on cases and on specific search queries. Updates can be delivered to a user’s inbox as frequently as they choose. Filings are attached to alerts as PDFs, so there is no need to login to the platform to view or download a file.

Affordability

Many legal research engines may charge you up to three, four, or five times Docket Alarm’s rates per service. For a low flat rate, attorneys have unlimited access to all of Docket Alarm’s features, supplementing legal research for minimal additional cost.

Sign up today to enhance your legal research with Docket Alarm and never miss another docket. 


Tags: ITC PACER PTAB
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Docket Alarm is an advanced search and litigation tracking service for the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB), the International Trade Commission (ITC), Bankruptcy Courts, and Federal Courts across the United States. Docket Alarm searches and tracks millions of dockets and documents for thousands of users.

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