Apple’s ‘Fintiv’ Rule Challenge Revived at Federal Circuit

Apple Inc. should be allowed to press arguments that a controversial US Patent and Trademark Office “rule” used to deny certain patent validity reviews was wrongly put in place without input from the public, the Federal Circuit ruled.

A federal court in California had improperly dismissed Apple’s challenge based on the government’s stance that the dispute wasn’t reviewable, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a precedential opinion Monday.

The ruling revives litigation attempting to knock out a pair of 2019 and 2020 rules collectively known as NHK-Fintiv, in which the PTO ...