Patent Judge Sees Small Dip in Decision Review During Rulemaking

A US Patent and Trademark Office judge says they’ve observed a slight reduction in requests to utilize the agency’s Circulation Judge Pool to review tribunal decisions about patent validity amid rulemaking aimed at eliminating senior leadership’s involvement in those rulings.

The PTO proposed in October new public guardrails around patent judges’ decisions along with making the pool optional, so it could be a “little bit early to say,” but “judges are continuing to make use of the process,” said Melissa Haapala, vice chief judge to the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board. There “might be a small downtick,” she said ...