Law Commons^™

Consequences For Patent Owners If A Patent Is Unconstitutionally Invalidated By The Patent Trial And Appeal Board, Mark Magas

Chicago-Kent Law Review

There have been many constitutional challenges against the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) since it was created by the America Invents Act in 2011. While the merits of these challenges have been widely debated, there has been little analysis of what would happen if one of these challenges succeeded and patents are found to have been unconstitutionally invalidated. This note examines how issues with waiver, retroactivity, and finality may prevent patent owners from getting their patent rights back, considering the type of constitutional challenge and the different stages of the PTAB process. While the odds are stacked against patent …

When Can The Patent Office Intervene In Its Own Cases?, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of administrative patent validity review since the America Invents Act has rested on an enormous expansion of Patent Office authority. A relatively little-known aspect of that authority is the agency's statutory ability to intervene in Federal Circuit appeals from adversarial proceedings in its own Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The Patent Office has exercised this intervenor authority frequently and with specific apparent policy objectives, including where one of the adverse parties did not participate in the appeal. Moreover, until recently, there has been no constitutional inquiry into the Article III standing that the Patent Office must establish in …

The Proper Appellate Standard Of Review For Ptab Factual Findings Made Incidental To Claim Construction, A. David Brzozowski Ii

Catholic University Law Review

The America Invents Act (AIA) represents the most significant change to U.S. patent law since the 1952 Patent Act. Since its passage, the AIA has drawn wide support from the intellectual property community, primarily due to the new post-grant opposition proceedings the Act created.

However, certain aspects of the new system created by the AIA are controversial. Specifically, judges and practitioners alike debate which standard of review courts should apply to the factual findings made by the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) during these opposition proceedings. While the Federal Circuit has reviewed all factual findings made at the Patent …

Patent Misjoinder, David O. Taylor

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act effectively repealed aspects of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by creating a new statutory section governing joinder of accused infringers and consolidation of actions for trial in most patent infringement cases. This new law codifies a substantial barrier to joinder and consolidation, contradicting two of the primary policies embraced by the drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: the promotion of liberal standards both for evaluating the sufficiency of pleadings and for evaluating the propriety of joinder of parties. Remarkably, the new statutory section does so despite the absence of any detailed scholarly …