Haynes and Boone, LLP Partner Raghav Bajaj was featured in a Law360 article on a bill to reform multiple aspects of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s handling of inter partes and post-grant review proceedings.
Below is an excerpt:
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy has announced a bill to stop Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges from factoring in the timing of related litigation when deciding whether to review a patent, a policy shift that backtracks from the pro-patentee reforms implemented over the last few years.
Perhaps the biggest mark former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Andrei Iancu left on the office was increasing the instances where PTAB judges could use their discretion to turn away patent challenges, particularly when parallel district court litigation was running on a similar timeline.
Democrat Leahy, the leader of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on intellectual property, said Wednesday that he is trying to shut down Iancu's so-called Fintiv rule, along with other precedent made over the last few years. Leahy's goal with the newly announced bill is to re-strengthen the board created under the America Invents Act, a 2011 law that he co-sponsored.
"Sen. Leahy sees this as a way to course correct back to the intent of the America Invents Act," said Haynes and Boone LLP partner Raghav Bajaj. "He saw that the office was going away from its initial mission to review patents and improve the quality of patents and cutting off that review using things that were outside of the statute itself. He sees this as a necessary step to … focus on the review of the patent."
To read the full article, click here.
