2020 PTAB Digest: The Latest Trends and Developments in Post-Grant Proceedings

The PTAB Digest provides an overview of PTAB statistics, trends, and updates that impact strategies and business decisions for patent owners and petitioners alike. 

Significant developments in 2020 included the following:

• The US Supreme Court further constricted appellate review of PTAB decisions by making most institution-related determinations nonreviewable.
• The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit confirmed that when a patent owner proposes amended or substitute claims during an inter partes review (IPR), the PTAB may consider grounds of unpatentability that could not have been raised in the initial IPR petition, including patent eligibility under Section 101.
• The PTAB provided further guidance on when it will exercise its discretion to deny petitions under Section 325(d) where the same or substantially the same prior art or arguments were previously presented.

Contact our PTAB Working Group leader, Dion Bregman, for comments, questions, suggestions, or to learn more about our PTAB experience.