Between the stock market crash of 1929 and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, the U.S. economy fell off a cliff. During that three-year period, five thousand banks failed and nine million bank accounts were suddenly worthless. In the calamity of the Great Depression, millions of people were thrown out of work, unemployment stood at […]
Tag Archives: PTAB
Patent Death Squads? Who Cares?
July 8, 2021
Patent
Patent and invention owners should care. You should care. Barely a decade ago, Congress created the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and gave it the power of life and death over patents. In the years since, the PTAB has done exactly what Congress intended – reduce the cost to challenge and kill patents and […]
U.S. v. Arthrex: A Battle for Power over Patent Judges
March 4, 2021
Patent
A fascinating aspect of the law is that something can be standard practice, or settled law, until a creative lawyer or court pulls it apart, turns it on its head, and a new paradigm is born. Think of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona, or Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Each of these decisions […]
Am I Entitled to Compensation if the USPTO Cancels My Patent?
October 8, 2020
Patent
The USPTO’s trial arm, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (‘PTAB’), cancels patent claims so frequently that the PTAB is usually the copyist’s first stop in defending against patent infringement. Before the PTAB cancels the claims, the patent owner has a valuable (and expensive) asset, namely the patent. When the PTAB cancels the patent claims, […]
USPTO Fixes Some of the Problems with the PTAB
November 22, 2018
Intellectual Property, Patent
The ‘Patent Trial and Appeal Board’ (‘PTAB’) has 174 administrative judges, who hear appeals of actions by the USPTO, such as denials of patent applications. In the past, the USPTO has been accused of packing the PTAB panels with handpicked judges to reach a desired result in a particular case. Panels of the PTAB also […]
The Audacity of [Patent] Hope
April 12, 2018
Patent
There are people who wish that the U.S. patent system would just go away. Their allies successfully lobbied for and passed the ‘America Invents Act’ back in 2011 that resulted in the USPTO patent death squads, also known as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). As we described last month, the PTAB kills patents with impunity […]
Patent Death Squads 1, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe 0
March 15, 2018
Patent
In the America Invents Act, Congress shifted challenges to the validity of patents from the Federal courts to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), an arm of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The PTAB applies different rules and standards than the Federal courts, rules and standards that favor the patent infringer and not […]
Is the USPTO Manipulating Inter Partes Review?
September 15, 2017
Patent
The answer is ‘yes.’ But why should we care? “Inter Partes Review” or “IPR” is a recent process by which a person infringing a patent can challenge the patent before a panel of USPTO employees. The USPTO employees are members of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The person challenging the patent will present […]