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Ben Pleune

is a partner in the Alston & Bird, LLP Intellectual Property Litigation Group, with extensive experience litigating patents in U.S. district courts, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and before the International Trade Commission. Ben’s practice focuses on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in a variety of industries, including pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, medical devices, Internet database and e-commerce services, robotics and military mobility components. For more information or to contact Ben please visit his firm profile page.

Recent Articles by Ben Pleune

New PTAB Rules Level the Playing Field for Patent Owners in IPR

After much public comment and debate, new changes to rules for post-grant administrative trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) go into effect on May 2, 2016. These final rule changes, which are the second set of changes since the America Invents Act (AIA) went into effect, are the culmination of a series of PTAB listening tours and public comments to the rule change proposals published in August 2015. Among other things, the new rules are intended to address concerns that patent owners were at a disadvantage in responding to patent challenges, particularly during the pre-institution stage of a PTAB proceeding. The rule changes also introduce certification requirements for documents filed with the PTAB, confirm the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) standard, as well as exceptions to the BRI standard for expiring patents, and adopt an appellate-style word count limit for major briefs.