Federal Circuit Dismisses Patent Owner’s Appeal of Favorable IPR Decision for Lack of Standing

by Dennis Crouch

In Dolby v. Unified Patents, the Federal Circuit confronted an unusual procedural question: can a patent owner who prevails in an inter partes review (IPR) challenge the PTAB's reasoning underlying that favorable outcome? The court's answer was a resounding no - at least in this instance - dismissing Dolby's appeal for lack of standing.

Dolby successfully defended its patent claims before the PTAB, with the Board concluding that Unified Patents failed to prove any challenged claims unpatentable. Yet Dolby appealed, seeking not to overturn this favorable result but to challenge the Board's refusal to determine whether Unified had properly identified all real parties in interest under 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(2). This statute requires that a petition "may be considered only if the petition identifies all real parties in interest."

Dolby argued that nine additional entities should have been named as additional real parties in interest, but the Board declined to adjudicate this dispute. Following its precedential decision in SharkNinja, the Board explained that it would not resolve real party in interest disputes unless they were material to time bar or estoppel issues in the current proceeding. Since no such issues were implicated, the Board saw no need to determine the identities of the actual parties behind Unified's challenge.