Reference: Leahy-Smith America Invents Act

THE PATENT MICROCOSM IS TRYING to crush PTAB, a supplant or 'watchdog' for USPTO examiners. PTAB helps ensure high patent quality, sometimes by assessing older patents which were not sufficiently scrutinised.

"PTAB helps ensure high patent quality, sometimes by assessing older patents which were not sufficiently scrutinised."PTAB's good work reached all-time highs earlier this year and these latest figures suggest that this trend continues. "June was the second-busiest month of 2017 for Patent Trial and Appeal Board petition filing," said a report, "with Halliburton Energy Services the top petitioner."

"Record half for PTAB filing ends with 206 petitions in June," says the headline.

Very good!

This will probably mean that the number of patents invalidated by PTAB, based on lack of merit, will continue to grow.

"This will probably mean that the number of patents invalidated by PTAB, based on lack of merit, will continue to grow."PTAB is not a foe but a friend.

"At Managing IP’s European Life Sciences Forum, Finnegan’s Jennifer Roscetti and Erin Sommers covered issues of patent eligibility in the US and tips for IPR proceedings," said the above publication. It's obviously a hot topic. Patent law firms dislike PTAB. Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) are what drives PTAB and patent maximalists' blogs try to squash PTAB or at least slow it down. Patently-O does that a lot and the other day it wrote that "the PTAB will get a chance to determine validity under this new construction" on remand. More and more cases are now being sent PTAB's way and Patently-O can't quite stop that. As a matter of practice and law, PTAB oughtn't allow patents to be changed (to avert invalidation); if they need changes in order to survive scrutiny, then they're bogus and should not exist. But watch what happened: "After receiving substantial criticism for refusing to allow claim amendments during Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs), the USPTO began to to relax its standards somewhat. In this case, however, the Federal Circuit (C.J. Prost) has rejected the PTO’s expanded approach – holding that “the Board did not properly consider the arguments petitioner set forth in its opposition to the patent owner’s motion to amend.”"

So basically, they tried to slow down PTAB by demanding detailed (written) responses to appeals (from CAFC); now there's this...

Be sure that PTAB will come under truly nasty attacks, including attacks on judges. That's all that the microcosm has got left. It's losing the plot. ⬆