The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued new tribunal precedents geared toward protecting patent owners from multiple challenges to their intellectual property.
The decisions fit into a larger theme for the Patent Trial and Appeal Board under PTO Director Andrei Iancu, who has made his mark on the board by trying to balance inter partes reviews. Critics said the reviews previously favored challengers over patent owners.
The precedential decisions by the board included one that involved the identification of a non-party in a tribunal fight that stands to benefit from the outcome, known as a real party in interest (RPI). ...