Here's a couple summaries of the January 2017 University of Florida Research Foundation case: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/03/16/ufrf-eleventh-amendment-defe

Here's a couple summaries of the January 2017 University of Florida Research Foundation case: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/03/16/ufrf-eleventh-amendment-defense-ptab-creates-ipr-immunity-iprs-public-universities/id=79341/ http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/03/16/ufrf-eleventh-amendment... https://patentlyo.com/patent/2017/02/sovereign-university-challenge.html https://patentlyo.com/patent/2017/02/sovereign-university-ch... And here's a later case involving the University of Maryland Baltimore where the reasoning was reaffirmed: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e8a324fd-4be6-4515-918e-77f35efac275 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e8a324fd-4be6... I post this here as a response to 'rayiner' not because he can't find these links on his own, but because I'd be interested in his opinion one of the suggestions in that last Lexology link: Third, public universities and hospital systems may see their research sponsors begin to stop demanding full ownership of patents resulting from sponsored research and/or clinical studies, in favor of a more natural joint ownership structure. Presumably, since all owners of a patent are necessary parties to an IPR (and district court litigation), even a private, for-profit entity that is a joint owner of a patent with a public university or hospital may be able to benefit from assertions of sovereign immunity in IPRs. Does this multiple ownership theory of immunity make sense to you? Instead of transferring the entire patent to a sovereign Indian nation, would it be possible for them to make gift of some tiny percentage of ownership of the patent, and still gain all the benefits of sovereign immunity? I have to say, from the outside the whole thing seems like a farce. Regardless of the form the review takes, Covidien's argument that a patent review is directed against the patent, rather than the owner, sure makes intuitive sense. It makes some sense that a sovereign state would be immune from charges of infringement, but seems absurd to me that the US government would no longer be allowed to review the claims of a patent because the ownership changed.