Foley Hoag‘s PTAB Practice Group is delighted to launch this blog dedicated to all aspects of practice before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. In this blog, we plan to offer commentary to augment the reader’s general understanding of proceedings before the PTAB, and to provide insight into important issues in PTAB practice. Although we expect that most of our comments will arise in the context of inter partes review, we plan to provide commentary on other aspects of PTAB practice, including post-grant review, covered business method review, interferences, derivations, ex parte appeals, and reexamination appeals. We will draw on our collective years of experience in all of these areas, as well as experience representing parties before the Central Reexamination Unit, the district courts, the ITC, and the Federal Circuit.
During my service as an Administrative Patent Judge, I handled over 120 inter partes reviews and covered business method reviews. In returning to private practice, I plan to provide my personal observations from this experience to give insights and provide practice tips to others who have matters in front of judges like myself. Along with my fellow contributors, I will focus in particular on practice tips, significant orders and decisions issued by the PTAB (especially IPR), Federal Circuit appeals from PTAB cases, interplay between PTAB proceedings and litigation in the district courts and ITC, proposed rulemaking at the PTAB, and statistical trends.
We welcome your feedback.