Fenwick associate Jennifer Bush spoke with IAM Media to discuss the reform proposal that the US Patent and Trademark Office advanced in April, which will expand discretionary denial to patent challenging entities like Unified Patents. Most of the changes surround the board’s practice of discretionarily denying the institution of a trial in a proceeding under the America Invents Act, including IPRs and post-grant reviews.
Bush shared her perspective on how the rules proposal may impact various industries differently: "Many of the proposals will have disparate applicability across technology sectors. For example, in technology sectors where parallel and serial petitions are more commonplace (e.g. when there are a larger number of companies practicing the same technology), the rules directed at changes to how those parallel or serial petitions or potential joinder thereof may have a larger impact."
The full article is available on IAM Media (subscription required).