“Death squads.” “Hanging judge[s].” A “reign of terror.” “Patent killing fields.”
Even if we set aside the questionable taste shown in analogizing the review of patents to genocide, there’s some extremely overwrought rhetoric out there being used to describe the inter partes 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.) process. The rhetoric is based on a perception that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (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.) is unfairly invalidating patents. It leads to claims that 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. judges are unfairly biased against patents.
That perception is wrong.
Those claims are wrong.
May 2017
Finnegan’s 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. Blog compiles monthly statistics on 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. outcomes at 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.. They recently posted their May 2017 summary. Here’s the key graph:
That’s right. Even after institution (i.e., after the judges decided there was “a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition”), more than half of the challenged claims were upheld. The judges made an initial assessment that the claims were reasonably likely to prove invalid. And then, upon further review, they changed their minds about half the time.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen these kinds of numbers, either.
March 2017
Let’s head back to March. 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. Blog again compiled the statistics. And again, we see similar outcomes (note that the color scheme is different between the two graphs.)
Around half the time, they changed their minds.
And let’s remember that it’s only approximately ⅔ of petitions that even get instituted—in other words, ⅓ of patents survive even before we get to this graph.
Overall
Now, these months were selected because they had particularly high rates of 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. judges changing their mind. In other months, the numbers are different, and generally more claims are cancelled. But this fact suggests that, contrary to the rhetoric, 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. judges are perfectly happy to find a patent valid—if it’s actually novel and non-obvious. It’s only when a patent is invalid that it gets cancelled.
In other words: if 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. is invalidating a lot of patents, it seems to be because there are a lot of invalid patents being granted and challenged.
Plus Ça Change
I’ll end on a historical note. This isn’t the first time that the point has been made that there’s a lot of patents of doubtful validity out there. Here’s a gem from the debate over the 1952 Patent Act:
The speaker here, quoted saying: “[m]ost patent cases that reach the Supreme Court are of the doubtful validity type” and questioning whether they ought to have made it to the Supreme Court is one Mr. McCabe, holder of 125 patents of his own.
I suspect that if Mr. McCabe were around today, he’d be filing a few IPRs.
