August 07, 2014
A Virginia federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office correctly refused to terminate four inter partes re-examinations of vending machine patents in light of a consent judgment, saying that the proceedings can end only when the USPTO or a federal court reaches a decision on a patent’s validity. (Correction: An earlier headline and story mistakenly referred to the re-examinations at issue as being inter partes reviews. The error has been corrected.)