The idea of a scenario as presented in the blog title might seem silly, but the reality is that, based on legal decisions made by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and more recently by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, it could happen. In fact, it has, specifically in the context of inter partes review (IPR).
Can the inventor of a patented item later challenge the patent?
PTAB adopts new claims construction review standard
Love it or hate it, inter partes review (IPR) is now a judicially endorsed fixture in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's (PTAB) toolbox. We wrote about this in the first September post on this blog, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this administrative form of review in resolving disputes over the validity of granted patents and claims of alleged patent infringement.
The state of inter partes review
Law is always subject to change. That's something that experienced attorneys in any practice area know and appreciate, and the truth of the statement is certainly clear in the context of intellectual property law. In just the past few months, several intellectual property cases have made headlines, and that is what we focus on in our inaugural post for this blog.
