Whether a patent owner has a statutory right to know the identity of all real parties in interest in an inter partes review petition under the America Invents Act

No question identified. : PETITIONER’S APPLICATION TO EXTEND TIME TO FILE A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI To the Honorable Chief Justice Roberts, as Circuit Justice for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit: Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2101(c) and Supreme Court Rules 13.5, 22, and 30.8, Petitioner Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp. (Dolby) respectfully requests that the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in this case be extended for sixty days to February 20, 2026. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in the case below on June 5, 2025. See Ex. A. A timely field petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc was denied on September 23, 2025. See Ex. B. Absent an extension of time, the petition would be due on December 22, 2025. Petitioner is filing this application at least ten days before that date. See Sup. Ct. R. 13.5. The Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) to review this case. Background This case involves an important statutory question. Congress has determined that a petition for inter partes review “may be considered only if ... the petition identifies all real parties in interest.” 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(2). But the court below held that a patent owner faced with an inter partes review petition has no right to know whether certain specific entities must be named as real parties in interest to a petition against it. See Ex. A at 5-6. That decision and its underlying reasoning ignores the plain text of the statute, undermines an important purpose of the America Invents Act (AIA), creates a split among the circuits, and contradicts prior decisions of this Court. 1. Petitioner Dolby (NYSE: DLB) is a publicly traded American company headquartered in San Francisco with more than 1,000 employees in the United States and over 2,000 employees worldwide. Since its founding in 1965 by inventor Ray Dolby, Dolby has pioneered innovations in audio and image signal processing and compression technologies, enabling more immersive experiences for cinema, television, mobile devices, streaming, and home entertainment. 2. In December 2020, Unified Patents, LLC (Unified) filed a petition for inter partes review challenging Dolby’s U.S. Patent 10,237,577, titled “Method and apparatus for encoding/decoding images using a prediction method adopting in-loop filtering.” The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) instituted review on June 17, 2021. Post-institution, Dolby challenged Unified’s petition as deficient on the merits. Dolby also presented extensive evidence, gathered through discovery, that Unified had failed to name “all real parties in interest” to its petition as required by 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(2). Dolby requested a finding that at least one of nine specific entities is an unnamed real party in interest to Unified’s petition. Dolby asked that those entities be named as real parties in interest so that they would be bound by the estoppel consequences attached to the proceeding under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e). 3. In June 2022, the PTO issued a Final Written Decision upholding the validity of the 577 patent. The PTO found that Unified’s petition failed on the merits, but it refused to determine whether Unified’s petition violated Congress’s mandate to name “all real parties in interest” under § 312(a)(2). Instead, the PTO relied on its own policy preferences against making such findings due to alleged “efficiency” considerations. 4. Dolby timely appealed to the Federal Circuit. Dolby explained that Congress’s mandate under § 312(a)(2) grants patent owners an informational right to know the identity of all real parties in interest to a petition filed against them, and that the PTO’s refusal to provide that information to Dolby caused Dolby an injury in fact giving rise to standing to challenge the PTO’s decision. Dolby further demonstrated that the violation of its information right caused it downstream consequences, including by hindering Dolby’s abi