Bloomberg BNA and AIPLAAmerican Intellectual Property Law Association, formerly the American Patent Law Association. DC-based professional organization that represents the interests of the intellectual property community, including the patent bar. just released a nationwide survey of patent attorneys and agents asking about their experiences with inter partes reviewAn adversarial procedure created by the AIA for challenging patents. Intended to be similar to a court proceeding, the parties argue before an Administrative Patent Judge, not a patent examiner. The challenger must show a reasonable likelihood of successfully invalidating one claim before the PTAB will agree to grant a petition for review. at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board. Bloomberg BNA and AIPLAAmerican Intellectual Property Law Association, formerly the American Patent Law Association. DC-based professional organization that represents the interests of the intellectual property community, including the patent bar. did a survey of attitudes towards inter partes reviewAn adversarial procedure created by the AIA for challenging patents. Intended to be similar to a court proceeding, the parties argue before an Administrative Patent Judge, not a patent examiner. The challenger must show a reasonable likelihood of successfully invalidating one claim before the PTAB will agree to grant a petition for review. (IPRIntellectual Property Rights. Usually associated with formal legal rights such as patent, trademark, and copyright. Intellectual property is a broader term that encompasses knowledge, information, and data considered proprietary whether or not it is formally protected.). Among attorneys representing patent owners, 48% said that they thought that over all, inter partes reviewAn adversarial procedure created by the AIA for challenging patents. Intended to be similar to a court proceeding, the parties argue before an Administrative Patent Judge, not a patent examiner. The challenger must show a reasonable likelihood of successfully invalidating one claim before the PTAB will agree to grant a petition for review. has been very beneficial. This includes in-house counsel. 45% of in-house counsel whose patents had been subject to IPRIntellectual Property Rights. Usually associated with formal legal rights such as patent, trademark, and copyright. Intellectual property is a broader term that encompasses knowledge, information, and data considered proprietary whether or not it is formally protected. said that IPRs are very beneficial.
Personally, I find that result pleasantly surprising. I would have expected the numbers to be much lower.
I do note that the survey’s finding is actually a little stronger than Bloomberg reports. The attorneys were asked to rank from 1 to 10 to describe how beneficial they feel that IPRs have been, with 10 being the most beneficial, 1 being the least. 48% of respondents who most recently represented patent owners in an IPRIntellectual Property Rights. Usually associated with formal legal rights such as patent, trademark, and copyright. Intellectual property is a broader term that encompasses knowledge, information, and data considered proprietary whether or not it is formally protected. gave a rank between 7 and 10. But if you add in the respondents who ranked it as a 6 (which is still more beneficial than harmful), you get 65% of attorneys representing patent owners. If you only look at in-house counsel in that group, it’s 70% who ranked IPRs as 6 or better.
That is, in a survey of patent attorneys with recent experience with IPRs, a solid majority of attorneys representing patent owners said that they think IPRs are more beneficial than harmful.
Is the survey biased? Bloomberg has no agenda, it’s a news organization. And AIPLAAmerican Intellectual Property Law Association, formerly the American Patent Law Association. DC-based professional organization that represents the interests of the intellectual property community, including the patent bar. is hardly biased against patent owners. I don’t think it’s fair to impute a bias to either organization.
Does the survey accurately reflect opinions in the patent community? That’s not easy to answer. Here’s what the survey report says:
The explanations in the previous section and other conjecture in this paper are intriguing and call for more study of the phenomena recorded in the results. And a real-data statistical analysis of the link between outcomes in the PTABPatent Trial and Appeal Board. Reviews adverse decisions of examiners on written appeals of applicants and appeals of reexaminations, and conducts inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews. The Board also continues to decide patent interferences, as it was known as the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) before the AIA. and district court dispositions is still wanting.
But in general, the results indicate that IPRIntellectual Property Rights. Usually associated with formal legal rights such as patent, trademark, and copyright. Intellectual property is a broader term that encompasses knowledge, information, and data considered proprietary whether or not it is formally protected. proceeding participants appear to be settling into the practice, now in the fifth year of its availability. And the gap between attitudes of patent owners and petitions [sic], as reported anecdotally in the media in the early days of AIAAmerica Invents Act of 2011. AIA made modest reforms, most notably moving the U.S. to a first-inventor-to-file system more aligned with foreign practice, but also including expanding prior user rights to all patent-eligible subject matter, and instituting a post-grant review proceeding. proceeding implementation, appears to be closing.
The survey itself says that more study is needed, so we can’t say whether the results are representative of the larger population. But this survey result certainly suggests that patent owners aren’t unified in their opinions of inter partes reviewAn adversarial procedure created by the AIA for challenging patents. Intended to be similar to a court proceeding, the parties argue before an Administrative Patent Judge, not a patent examiner. The challenger must show a reasonable likelihood of successfully invalidating one claim before the PTAB will agree to grant a petition for review.; we should be cautious about generalizing the positions of patent owners.
Patent policy is going to continue to be debated for the foreseeable future. In order for that debate to be productive, we need to be willing to look at the evidence, even if that evidence contradicts our beliefs.
At a high level, we all agree that patent policy should support innovation and help grow the economy. Our goal should be to find the best policy to achieve those goals most effectively, even if that policy isn’t what we personally thought it would be.
