House Democrat Pushes Patent Office to Reverse Policy Shifts

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.) urged the US Patent and Trademark Office to immediately roll back new interim processes that could reduce the role of an administrative court that reviews the validity of patents.

The new process—which filters patent validity challenges through the PTO’s director to deny, or not, based on discretionary factors—might discourage parties from bringing cases to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board even when there is a strong argument for invalidity, Lofgren said in a letter addressed to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the agency’s acting director Coke Morgan Stewart, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg ...