Posts Tagged: "Patent Trial Practice Guide"

Recent USPTO Update Provides Blueprint for PTAB Patent Challenge Process

Since the passing of the America Invents Act (AIA) and the implementation of the inter partes review (IPR) process, IPR has become a popular and important avenue for companies and individuals to challenge the validity of a patent in an administrative proceeding through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In the past five years, patent owners and challengers alike have presented new and sometimes novel challenges to the way the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), comprised of a panel of administrative law judges that review and decide cases, conduct trial proceedings, causing the PTAB to reevaluate and tweak the process along the way. Building on the scores of changes and interpretations the PTAB has made since the first AIA trial, the USPTO provided guidance in August 2018 and more recently in July 2019 summarizing and clarifying how the PTAB handles the IPR process.  On November 20, 2019, the Patent Office issued a consolidated Office Patent Trial Practice Guide (“Practice Guide”) incorporating the updates from August 2018 and July 2019, providing practitioners with a single streamlined blueprint for the overall review process.