The America Invents Act (“AIA”) created a number of new avenues for challenging the validity of a patent, including through administrative trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. These post-grant (e.g., after patent issuance) procedures, including inter partes review (“IPR”), covered business method review (“CBM”), and post grant review (“PGR”) provide a faster and less-costly means to challenge the validity of a patent, compared to district court litigation.  Equally important, parties do not need to wait to be sued for patent infringement to seek post-grant review at the PTAB.  In fact, the sooner a party seeks review of a patent, the better, particularly if the party anticipates or is already involved in related litigation.

The firm's Post-Grant Proceedings (“PGP”) team leverages its extensive patent litigation experience with technical know-how to represent patent owners and challengers in post-grant proceedings.  We advise clients using the most successful legal and procedural strategies and help coordinate related litigation and patent prosecution.  Our PGP team has a broad-range of technical, subject-matter expertise including:

• E-commerce
• Internet advertising
• Network protocols and adapters
• Encryption
• Network and computer security
• Firewalls
• Hard-drive technology
• Medical devices
• Nutritional supplements
• Optics
• Polymers
• Various consumer and commercial products

Our representation involves successfully handling appeals from post-grant proceedings at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.