Angeline Premraj is an attorney at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner [Photo courtesy of Finnegan]
A Patent and Trademark Office director confirmation may solve some problems, but it’s not yet clear how discretionary review will continue to evolve.Angeline Premraj, Troy Viger and Kathleen Daley, Finnegan
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s inter partes review procedure is a popular avenue for challenging the validity of a patent outside of litigation. These procedures are overseen by a panel of three administrative patent judges (APJs) on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the Patent Office. In United States v. Athrex, the Supreme Court ruled that the “unreviewable authority” of APJs to conduct adversarial proceedings for challenging the validity of a patent violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The Supreme Court also ruled that the appropriate remedy was to giv…