Challenges to Patent Office Changes Fall on Deaf Appellate Ears

Big Tech companies and the lawyers who represent them are expressing disappointment that the nation’s top patent court is declining to rein in changes at the US Patent and Trademark Office that have made it harder to challenge the validity of patents asserted in litigation.

Over a period of four months, the Federal Circuit has rejected, one after another, 13 mandamus petitions urging the court to roll back changes to Patent Trial and Appeal Board procedures adopted the during the second Trump administration. Those changes largely limit when the tribunal will take up validity challenges and centralize that ...