Tag Archives: final decision

Is the PTAB Blindly Throwing Darts?

iStock_000000511731_SmallThere’s been an issue bubbling under the surface of PTAB AIA proceedings: redundant grounds.

The issue boiled to prominence last week during oral argument at the Federal Circuit in Shaw Industries Group v. Automated Creel Systems, No. 2015-1116, which was an appeal of IPR2013-00132. Shaw, the Petitioner, had several of its grounds directed to certain claims denied in the interests of “efficiency” and then lost on the instituted grounds for those claims in the final decision.… More

The IPR Hearing Really Does Matter

PTAB Hearing RoomWhen I was an Adminsitrative Patent Judge, I expected to go into an IPR trial hearing with a pretty good idea of who was going to win.  I was surpised to find that rarely to be the case.  I was far more open to persuasion at that point than I had expected to be.

Some commentators have likened PTAB trial hearings to oral argument at the Federal Circuit.  … More

The Death Valley for Petitioners in IPR

view from death valley at dante's point

A Petitioner faces great peril if it gets an IPR instituted but then doesn’t prevail in the final written decision. That is, the Petitioner puts in enough to get a trial but not enough to win it. A Petitioner thus caught finds itself bound even more inextricably to the patent it sought to free itself from.

How can this happen? After all, if there was enough in the Petition to persuade the PTAB that a trial is justified,… More