Kutak Rock served as lead counsel for First National Bank of Omaha, BBVA Compass Bank and Commerce Bank in a notable inter partes review proceeding against Intellectual Ventures II LLC before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board.

The inter partes review challenged the validity of Intellectual Ventures’ patent directed to packet-filtering network firewalls. Intellectual Ventures filed patent infringement cases against a number of banks alleging infringement of the patent, including a case in the District of Nebraska against the firm’s client First National Bank of Omaha.

The Kutak Rock team was led by Jason Jackson, a registered patent attorney in the firm’s Omaha office. On behalf of the banks, Kutak Rock argued at the oral argument that the patent is invalid and that Intellectual Ventures cannot now claim, nearly twenty years after the patent was filed, that the subject matter of the patent was actually invented years before the patent’s filing date. A final written decision regarding the validity of the patent is expected from the Patent Trial and Appeals Board in September 2015.