Talking PTAB with Bob Steinberg
Indefiniteness Before the PTAB
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
Earlier this week, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit’s finding that the government is a “person” eligible to petition for post-issuance AIA review proceedings. This 6-3 decision, Return Mail, Inc....more
The Federal Circuit decision in In re Durance is a rare precedential decision in an ex parte appeal from a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision rejecting a pending patent application. The Court took the USPTO to task...more
On November 16, 2017, the USPTO issued new procedures (“Standard Operating Procedure 9”) for governing cases remanded from the Federal Circuit. These procedures are applicable to all decisions remanded from the Federal...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) gets most of its attention (judicial and otherwise) regarding its decisions in inter partes review and covered business method proceedings. But the Board also has responsibility for...more
The USPTO recently announced a proposed new fee schedule in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in search of revenue to recover its projected $3 billion aggregated operating costs for the 2017 fiscal year. If enacted, it...more
Considering whether to institute a covered business method (CBM) review for a patent directed to mortgage loan systems and methods, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board) agreed that the patent was a covered...more
Patenting - Patenting generally offers a superior means for legally protecting most inventions, particularly since: • copyright, when available, does not provide a broad scope of protection; and • the...more