The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has become the main arena for fighting over whether a patent should have issued at all. Inter partes review, post-grant review, and covered business method proceedings let you test validity in front of technically trained judges, on a tighter budget and timeline than district court. We represent petitioners challenging patents and patent owners defending them, and our engineering roots make the prior art arguments land.
Challenging A Patent
If a patent is being asserted against you, an IPR or PGR petition can knock out the claims before they ever reach a jury. We run thorough prior art searches to find the references that actually move the Board, draft petitions that frame invalidity in clear technical terms, and prepare expert declarations on claim construction and obviousness. We argue effectively at the oral hearing and keep your PTAB strategy aligned with any parallel district court case.
Defending Your Patent
When someone petitions to cancel your claims, the preliminary response is your first chance to keep the proceeding from being instituted at all. We pick apart the petition's weaknesses, draft patent owner responses that address every challenged claim, and pursue claim amendments through the motion to amend process when narrowing makes sense. Throughout, we manage estoppel so the outcome here strengthens rather than undercuts your related litigation.
Estoppel And Timing
A PTAB proceeding reverberates well beyond the Board. The estoppel that attaches after a final written decision can limit the invalidity defenses you raise later in district court, so timing relative to parallel cases matters enormously. We weigh multiple-petition strategies against related patents and account for the SAS Institute rule, which requires the Board to decide every challenged claim, not just a chosen subset, once trial is instituted.