When the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or “Board”) first decided the IPR that led to the Fintiv rule, it justified its decision on the basis of “balanc[ing] considerations such as system efficiency, fairness, and patent quality.” But that rationale doesn’t hold up to the facts.
Tag Archive for inter partes review
Guest Post: A Solution to the OpenSky Problem
by patentprogress.org •
Joe Matal is a former Acting Director and Acting Solicitor of the USPTO and a current partner at Haynes and Boone, where he specializes in PTAB trials and Federal Circuit appeals. I have written several times about the $2.2 billion verdict in the VLSI v. Intel case. The case is extraordinary not just because of…
Fintiv Analysis Proves That Fintiv Is Being Used To Leave Likely Invalid Patents In Force
by Josh Landau •
A recently released study from Unified Patents has put numbers to the sense many patent attorneys already had—the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is spending a lot of time on Fintiv discretionary denial analysis. And I’ll follow up on that in a future post. But there’s one other thing that jumps out of the study’s…
The Pat-Signal Is Going Dark—Senator Leahy Won’t Seek Re-Election
by Josh Landau •
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has announced that he won’t be seeking re-election to the Senate for a ninth term. First elected in 1974, Senator Leahy has spent nearly 50 years in the Senate, focused on a wide variety of issues. Intellectual property is one of those issues, and it’s an issue where he’s been a…
Arthrex, Mobility Workx, and Director Review at Institution
by Josh Landau •
There’s been a fair amount of discussion regarding Judge Newman’s dissent in last week’s Mobility Workx case. In Mobility Workx, a divided panel of the Federal Circuit rejected a variety of constitutional challenges to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Judges Dyk and Schall, in the majority, found no merit in the due process…
Leahy and Cornyn Introduce Bill To Restore The America Invents Act
by Josh Landau •
Yesterday, Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee Chair Sen. Leahy (D-VT) and committee member Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the Restoring the America Invents Act (RAIA). RAIA would roll back changes introduced by former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu and by the courts, restoring the America Invents Act (AIA) to what it was always intended to be—a cost-effective alternative…
Patent Quality Week: Public Interest Patents, The AIA At Ten, And More
by Josh Landau •
This week marks the first annual Patent Quality Week. Low quality patents can have huge negative impacts on business sectors from Main Street retailers to Silicon Valley startups, and everywhere in between. Coordinated by Engine, a policy advocate for startups, Patent Quality Week includes a number of events focused on patent quality and how it…
Arthrex Is Here—What Will It Mean?
by Josh Landau •

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down its much-awaited decision—at least, much-awaited by people who care about patents and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)—in the consolidated U.S. v Arthrex, Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, and Smith & Nephew v. Arthrex cases. And while the multiple parties and multiple opinions might look complicated, it’s actually…
One Case, All The Problems: VLSI v. Intel Exemplifies Current Issues In Patent Litigation
by Josh Landau •
Patent litigation suffers from a number of issues at present. Hedge funds backing non-practicing entities (NPEs) in order to chase a share of billion-dollar judgments. Plaintiffs using damages methodologies that have little to no relation to the reality of the patent system in order to obtain those billion dollar judgments. NPEs asserting patents that they…
New Study Shows That IPR Delivers An Economic Benefit, Even If The District Court Doesn’t Stay Litigation
by Josh Landau •
New research from the Perryman Group shows that inter partes review (IPR) is economically beneficial, even if co-pending district court litigation isn’t stayed. The Perryman study, commissioned by Unified Patents, examines IPR’s economic impact, including the difference between staying or continuing on with a co-pending district court case. There are two important findings in this…