MaxLite announced that it has filed an additional petition for inter partes review (IPR) before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seeking to invalidate U.S. Patent No. 9,807,826 (’826 patent), owned by Jiaxing Super Lighting, a Chinese contract manufacturer.

This IPR is in addition to the two that were filed last month by MaxLite to invalidate Jiaxing Super Lighting’s 9,897,265 (‘265 patent) and 9,723,662 (‘662 patent) patents.

(Image: MaxLite)

Like the ‘265 and ‘662 patents, the patent that is the subject of the new petition is part of Jiaxing Super Lighting’s recently announced patent licensing program for LED tube lamps. According to the petition, the ‘826 patents should never have been issued in light of prior art known at the time the application leading to the ‘826 patent was filed.

MaxLite claimed that by the time the ‘826 patent application is filed, the technology described has already exited. Thus, the company called for IPR to seek cancellation of the patent. The company also filed IPR to challenge Jiaxing Super Lighting’s patents in November while the Chinese company filed a patent lawsuit accusing MaxLite of infringing the patents which the company later claimed invalid.

MaxLite General Counsel Zvi Raskin, said, “We encourage all lighting companies which have been approached by Jiaxing Super Lighting to review our IPRs and determine for yourselves whether you are willing to be bullied by Jiaxing Super Lighting into signing up for, and legitimizing, their patent license program.