CrowdStrike, Inc. v. GoSecure, Inc.

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Director_PTABDecision_Review@uspto.gov 	Paper 25
571.272.7822 	Date: June 25, 2025
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DIRECTOR OF THE
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
CROWDSTRIKE, INC.,
Petitioner,
v.
GOSECURE, INC.,
Patent Owner.
IPR2025-00068 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
IPR2025-00070 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)1
Before COKE MORGAN STEWART, Acting Under Secretary of
Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the United States
Patent and Trademark Office.
ORDER
Granting Director Review, Vacating the Decisions Granting Institution, and
Remanding to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for Further Proceedings
1 This order applies to each of the above-listed proceedings.

IPR2025-00068 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
IPR2025-00070 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
GoSecure, Inc. (“Patent Owner”) filed a request for Director Review
of the Decision granting institution (“Decision,” Paper 13) in each of the
above-captioned cases, and CrowdStrike, Inc. (“Petitioner”) filed an
authorized response to each request. See Paper 18 (“DR Request”);
Paper 19.2 In each request, Patent Owner argues that the Board abused its
discretion by instituting two proceedings against the same claims of the
same patent and that there are no exceptional circumstances that justify this
result.3 DR Request 6–10. Petitioner responds that the Board properly
instituted both proceedings because each petition advanced a distinct
interpretation for one of the claim terms at issue and Patent Owner failed to
take a position on the meaning of that term. Paper 19, 1–4.
The Board abused its discretion in granting institution of two petitions
challenging the same claims in this instance. See Decision 11; IPR2025-
00070, Paper 15, 10. The Board’s Consolidated Trial Practice Guide
2 Unless otherwise indicated, all citations are to the record in IPR2025-
00068. Similar papers were filed in IPR2025-00070.
3 While its request was pending, Patent Owner requested authorization to
submit supplemental briefs raising discretionary denial arguments, including
arguments based on the recent decision in iRhythm Technologies, Inc. v.
Welch Allyn, Inc., IPR2025-00363, Paper 10 (June 6, 2025). See Exs. 3101,
3102. Those requests were denied because Patent Owner failed to raise any
basis for discretionary denial in its Preliminary Responses and because these
proceedings are not subject to the Interim Processes for PTAB Workload
Management. Id.; see Interim Processes for PTAB Workload Management
Memorandum (Mar. 26, 2025) 3 (“The processes described herein will be
implemented in IPR and PGR proceedings where the deadline for the patent
owner to file a preliminary response has not yet passed”); FAQs for Interim
Processes for PTAB Workload Management, FAQ 5, available at
https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/faqs/interim-processes-workload-
management.
2

IPR2025-00068 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
IPR2025-00070 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
explains that “one petition should be sufficient to challenge the claims of a
patent in most situations” and “multiple petitions by a petitioner are not
necessary in the vast majority of cases.” See Patent Trial and Appeal Board
Consolidated Trial Practice Guide (“CTPG”) 59 (84 Fed. Reg. 64,280 (Nov.
21, 2019)).4
Petitioner filed two petitions primarily to present two different
constructions of the claim term “association”—a broader construction and a
narrower construction. Paper 3, 1. Petitioner advanced five obviousness
grounds based on Capalik5 after applying the broader interpretation in
IPR2025-00070 and advanced three obviousness grounds based on Capalik
and King6 after applying the narrower interpretation of the term in IPR2025-
00068. Id. at 2–5. As Patent Owner points out, the two petitions assert eight
different grounds with significant overlap. DR Request 3. Allowing
Petitioner more than one petition to challenge the same claims under two
different claim constructions effectively expands the permitted word count
and places “a substantial and unnecessary burden on the Board and the
patent owner and could raise fairness, timing, and efficiency concerns.” See
CTPG 59 (citing 35 U.S.C. § 316(b)).
Under these circumstances where two different claim constructions
were advanced in two petitions, the Board should have construed the claim
term and instituted review of, at most, one of the petitions. Instead, the
4 Available at https://www.uspto.gov/TrialPracticeGuideConsolidated.
5 US Application Publication No. 2008/0016570, published Jan. 17, 2008
(Ex. 1004).
6 Samuel T. King, Analyzing Intrusions Using Operating System Level
Information Flow (2006) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan)
(Ex. 1006).
3

IPR2025-00068 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
IPR2025-00070 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
Board relied on the fact that Patent Owner had not “weighed in on” the
claim construction issue as a reason to institute both petitions. Decision 11.
As Petitioner has already briefed its claim construction arguments, the
proper course is to allow Patent Owner to submit whatever arguments are
necessary for the panel to make a claim construction determination.
Accordingly, Director Review is granted, and the case is remanded to
the Board panel to determine which of the two proceedings, if any, to
institute. Before the Board can make that determination, however, Patent
Owner is authorized to file within fourteen days a brief of no more than ten
pages explaining how the Board should construe the term “association.”
Petitioner is authorized to file a five-page brief responding to Patent
Owner’s arguments no later than seven days after Patent Owner files its
brief. The Board shall consider the parties’ claim construction arguments in
making its determination. Absent good cause, the Board panel shall issue a
decision on remand within 30 days of the due date for Petitioner’s brief.
In consideration of the foregoing, it is:
ORDERED that Director Review is granted;
FURTHER ORDERED that the Board’s Decisions granting institution
of inter partes review (Paper 13; IPR2025-00070, Paper 15) are vacated;
FURTHER ORDERED that Patent Owner is authorized to file a ten-
page brief explaining how the Board should construe the term “association”
within fourteen days of the date of this decision;
FURTHER ORDERED that Petitioner is authorized to file a five-page
brief responding to Patent Owner’s arguments no later than seven days after
Patent Owner files its brief; and
4

IPR2025-00068 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
IPR2025-00070 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
FURTHER ORDERED that the cases are remanded to the Board for
further proceedings consistent with this decision.
5

IPR2025-00068 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
IPR2025-00070 (Patent 9,954,872 B2)
For PETITIONER:
Paul R. Hart
Adam P. Seitz
ERISE IP, P.A.
paul.hart@eriseip.com
adam.seitz@eriseip.com
FOR PATENT OWNER:
S. Giri Pathmanaban
Clement Naples
Daniel S. Todd
Steven W. Peters
CLEARY GOTTLIEB STEEN & HAMILTON LLP
gpathmanaban@cgsh.com
cnaples@cgsh.com
dtodd@cgsh.com
speters@cgsh.com
Raghav Bajaj
LATHAM & WATKINS LLP
raghav.bajaj@lw.com
6