Inter Partes Review proceedings before the Patent and Trademark Office are once again at the forefront of intellectual property litigation.
The 2011 America Invents Act allows a patent owner to seek leave from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to amend one or more of the claims that are challenged in an IPR, including substituting new claims instead of those that are challenged. Thus far, this ability exists more in theory than in practice: The PTO calculated that as of April 2016, the PTAB had granted only six out of 118 motions to amend patent claims. PTO, “Patent Trial and Appeal Board Motion to Amend Study” 4 (April 30, 2016).
