If the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was looking for a high-profile test case for the latest provisions of the America Invents Act, it couldn’t have asked for a much bigger fish than the Microsoft Corporation. The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant has asked the USPTO to invalidate a patent that Proxyconn Inc., a back-end Internet technology company, has accused Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Company, Acer America Corporation, and Dell Inc. of infringing.
On Tuesday, Microsoft filed an inter partes review petition [PDF]—under a new provision of the AIA that took effect Sunday that allows third parties to use prior art consisting of patents or printed publications to challenge the validity of patent claims they are accused of infringing.
