IPR filing receipts can take a month to issue

In the early days of AIA trials, the PTAB was able to issue filing notices less than a week after petition filing.  But paralegal resources now are stretched due to the need to process a full slate of institution decisions, interlocutory decisions, and final decisions on an IPR docket four-to-five times larger than projected.  As a result, lately it is taking almost a month to issue those notices.  This delay matters, because the Patent Owner’s deadline to file a preliminary response is set normally at 3 months from the date the notice is issued.  37 C.F.R. § 42.107(b).  So the delay benefits the Patent Owner, because it gets extra time to evaluate the petition for weaknesses, and because the delay undermines the Petitioner’s efforts to obtain a stay of related infringement litigation.

 

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