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January 23, 2014 PTAB Trial Statistics

By Eugene T. Perez

As of January 23, 2014, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) has updated the statistics of the number of inter partes reviews (“IPR”), post-grant reviews of covered business method patents (“CBM”), and derivation proceedings (“DER”) that have been filed. These stats are shown below, and can be found at:

http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/bpai/stats/aia_trial_statistics.jsp

The PTAB determines whether or not an IPR or PGR will be granted.  The PTAB may not authorize the IPR unless the petition and response shows there is a “reasonable likelihood” that the petitioner would prevail with at least one of the challenged claimed.[1] The granting of a PGR trial requires an initial threshold requirement of “more likely than not”, and is slightly higher than the IPR threshold standard. However, the latest statistics clearly show that the initial threshold has been met the majority of the time (see the AIA Trials Instituted/Disposals chart below).  The number of AIA Petitions, where 836 IPR petitions have been filed:

NUMBER OF AIA PETITIONS

 FY Total IPR CBM DER
2012 25 17 8
2013 563 514 48 1
2014 361 305
53
3
Cumulative 949 836 109 4

 

About 70% of the IPR and CBM petitions filed are in the electrical/computer arts, and less than 6% are in the biotechnology/pharma arts. The petitions by technology breakdown are:

AIA PETITION TECHNOLOGY BREAKDOWN

 Technology

Number of Petitions Percentage

Electrical/Computer

667 70.3%

Mechanical

153 16.1%

Chemical

71 7.5%

Bio/Pharma

52 5.5%

Design

6 0.6%

 

During an IPR or CBM, the Patent Owner (“PO”) can optionally file a Preliminary Response.[2]  Clearly, according to these statistics, the PO is choosing to file a Preliminary Response most of the time (407/544=75%). The number of filed PO Preliminary Responses is in the next chart:

NUMBER OF PATENT OWNER PRELIMINARY RESPONSES

 Filed Waived
FY2013 FY2014 FY2013 FY2014

IPR

237 170 63 74

CBM

33 30 2 1

 

AIA TRIALS/INSTITUTED DISPOSALS

Trials Instituted Joinders Denials Total No. of Decisions on Institution Disposals
Settlements Final Written Decisions* Other**
IPR FY13 167 10+ 26 203 38 2 1
FY14 112 34 146 37 13
CMB FY13 14 3 17 3 1
FY14 16 2 18 5 3

 

+10 cases joined to 8 base trials for a total of 18 cases involved in joinder.

*Includes judgment on request for adverse judgment.

**Includes terminations due to dismissals.

More information on the USPTO PTAB can be found here.

 


  1. 77 Fed. Reg. 48764 (Aug. 14, 2012).
  2. Id. at 48756.