Talking PTAB with Bob Steinberg
Indefiniteness Before the PTAB
Note: Includes reinstated, cross-, and consolidated appeals. After two years of declines, new appeals from the USPTO increased modestly in FY22. Appeals from district courts increased year over year as well, bucking a...more
Note: Includes reinstated, cross-, and consolidated appeals. Appeals from the USPTO dipped for the second straight year in FY21. Due to a spike in appeals from the Court of Federal Claims, District Courts are now the third...more
A PTAB panel found FedEx sufficiently akin to Priority Mail Express to meet the petition service rule, and to the extent necessary further waived the regulatory requirements related to the timing of Petitioner’s (TIZ Inc....more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (Patent Office) has issued final rules in inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR) and the transitional program for covered business method patents (CBM) proceedings...more
Last month, in January 2021, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) published a memorandum (the “January 2021 Memorandum”) clarifying how it will analyze claims for indefiniteness in AIA post-grant...more
These charts and graphs appear in the firm's Federal Circuit Appeals from the PTAB and ITC: Summaries of Key 2020 Decisions report... Appeals from the USPTO dipped in FY20, reaching their lowest level since FY15. After four...more
Covered Business Method (“CBM”) review ends in mid-September, and you have one last chance to take advantage. In 2011, the AIA introduced three new administrative review proceedings of patentability with the goal of...more
Less than two years ago, in Return Mail, Inc. v. U.S. Postal Service, 139 S. Ct. 1853 (2018), the Supreme Court held that a government entity -- in that case, the U.S. Postal Service -- is not a "person" under the America...more
Under the America Invents Act, the USPTO is to stop accepting petitions for review of covered business method patents after September 16, 2020. Given the various other priorities Congress will be dealing with between now and...more
After the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 139 S. Ct. 1853 (2019), held that federal agencies are not “persons” eligible to challenge a patent at the PTAB, the government was...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently posted the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) statistics for December 2019 (first quarter of FY2020)....more
To wrap up 2019 and usher in 2020 for practitioners who handle Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) matters, Foley partners Jeanne Gills, Steve Maebius, and George Quillin discussed 2019’s major developments in a webinar on...more
In November, the PTAB Bar Association held its annual Thought Leader Summit. The Summit highlighted recent changes to PTAB practice, with a keynote address from USPTO Director Andrei Iancu. In the opening remarks, Director...more
When former President Barack Obama signed the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act into law on Sept. 16, 2011, the patent system in the United States underwent one of its most sweeping and significant overhauls. The AIA replaced...more
In an opinion regarding a covered business method (CBM) review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit adopted a new claim construction and found the PTAB’s decision on CBM...more
Nothing Personal: Supreme Court Says Feds Lack Post-Grant Standing - With post-grant trials passing their seventh anniversary, the courts are still working out the kinks. The U.S. Supreme Court has already provided...more
The Federal Circuit vacated a PTAB decision invalidating all challenged claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,908,842 (’842 Patent) and ordered the PTAB to reconsider whether the patent should have been disqualified from covered...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - SIPCO, LLC v. Emerson Electric Co., Appeal No. 2018-1635 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 25, 2019) - In this appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) final written decision regarding covered...more
The USPTO has taken another major step in the fee-setting process for fee adjustments it expects to implement in January 2021, and published the proposed fees in the Federal Register. The major changes are the same as those...more
The USPTO has published a second update to the AIA Trial Practice Guide (TPG) containing additional guidance about trial practice before the Board. The USPTO published the original TPG in August 2012, concurrent with the...more
Recently, the Federal Circuit issued a series of decisions that address the rights and immunities that the federal and state government have when they become party to a post-grant proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal...more
In Return Mail, Inc. v. U.S. Postal Serv., 17-1594, Justice SOTOMAYOR wrote for the majority to overturn a Federal Circuit decision that the U.S. Postal Service had standing to petition for covered business method review. The...more
The Supreme Court ruled in Return Mail that a federal agency is not a "person" who may challenge an issued patent in inter partes review, post-grant review, or CBM review under the AIA. In its 6–3 decision in Return Mail,...more
In a 6-3 opinion authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) to institute patent review proceedings...more
On June 10, 2019 the United States Supreme Court held in Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 587 U.S. ____ (2019) that agencies of the federal government cannot challenge the validity of a patent via USPTO...more