Making Patent Quality Great Again

Summary: Continuing a crackdown on excessive patenting (e.g. software patenting) in the United States, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) shows no signs of stopping

PATENT scope is being narrowed at the USPTO and as we last noted here last night, IBM plays dirty in an effort to change that. IBM wants software patents back, as their potency at the Office and in the courts has been vastly diminished.

In the US patent system (Office and courts), the patent bubble has burst. There are far fewer lawsuits, more invalidations of patents, and we truly hope that Trump won't end up disrupting this inertia. PTAB filings, i.e. petitions to invalidate patents (a lot of software patents in there), have sky-rocketed, according to this latest PTAB report about January. To quote:

246 Patent Trial and Appeal Board petitions were filed in January, according to data taken from Docket Navigator. No month had broken 200 petitions before. In contrast, district court patent case filing slumped

The 246 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions filed in January was the most ever in one month, according to figures taken from the Docket Navigator database.

This corresponds with a decline in litigation, too, which everyone but prosecutors (law firms) would consider to be a good thing. Looking even further into the crushing of excessive patenting in the United States, MIP has this breakdown based on law firms:

Docket Navigator has released data on the top petitioners, patent owners and law firms at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board last year. The data is for petitions for IPR, CBM and PGR review in 2016.

Managing IP has also analysed data taken from the Docket Navigator database to dig deeper into the figures and reveal which law firms were involved on petitions filed in 2016, broken out by petitioner and respondent, as well as the most-active attorneys at the PTAB on 2016 petitions.

The good news, all in all, is that even about a month after Trump's inauguration PTAB is still strong and getting even stronger, as judged by the number of petitions it deals with. ⬆