Patent Board Marks Precedential Two Decisions Denying Review (1)

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has designated as precedential two patent board decisions refusing to hold administrative trials on patent challenges.

The decisions join nine others deemed precedential by the PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board in 2019. The board last year changed its process for precedential designations, leading to an increase.

Both decisions marked precedential May 7 denied instituting inter partes reviews, or trial proceedings conducted by the board to review one or more claims of a patent based on prior art, such as earlier patents.

The decisions “trend toward increasing the standard for institution for petitioners, and ...