Patent Tribunal Can Review Expired Patents, Appeals Court Rules

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has jurisdiction to review patents’ validity even after their expiration, the Federal Circuit ruled in an opinion wiping out the last surviving claim from a camera patent that’s been asserted against Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and several other large phone makers.

The appeals court rejected Gesture Technology Partners LLC’s argument that the PTAB overstepped by instituting an “inter partes review” of a granted patent after its expiration date in a precedential opinion issued Monday.

Gesture, a patent assertion company linked to prolific inventor Timothy Pryor, argued the PTAB—which invalidated 17 of the ...