Posts Tagged: "PTAB Masters"

In his keynote video address to PTAB Masters participants today, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) championed the record of former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu, and said that Iancu’s successful attempts to address many of the complaints with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) during his tenure should be codified into U.S. law. Changes such as harmonizing the PTAB claim construction standard with that of the district courts and making significant changes to the PTAB’s Standard Operating Procedures that have helped to create uniformity and instill transparency, all helped to provide more certainty for inventors, Tillis said.

The second day of IPWatchdog’s PTAB Masters™ 2021: “Winning at the PTAB” featured a keynote interview with former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director David Kappos, who was at the helm of the agency when the America Invents Act (AIA) was passed. As part of the AIA, Kappos was tasked with developing rules to implement the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and related post grant proceedings, and was chiefly focused on adhering to the unprecedented timelines set for those proceedings in the AIA. “The PTO had never been given strict timelines before,” explained Kappos. “I felt the gravity; I thought, ‘if the public is going to respect the PTO and patents, we have to get on top of the timeframes.’ [I told my team] the goal is going to be to implement within the timeframes 100% of the time.”

While steps taken under former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu to restore equilibrium at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) have improved a bad situation to some extent, in many ways the damage has been done, said IPWatchdog founder and CEO Gene Quinn during a keynote interview with Iancu earlier today, on day one of the PTAB Masters ™ 2021: Winning at the PTAB Series. “It felt sometimes like the PTAB was making it up as they went along,” said Quinn to Iancu. “It eroded the confidence of patent owners. I do think it’s getting to be more of an equilibrium, but it’s a damaged brand.”