On December 30, 2020, Chris Loh was quoted in Bloomberg Law on what issues to watch at the Federal Circuit in 2021, including the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as it tests the limits of its own discretion to make procedural rules
According to the article, the Federal Circuit and the PTAB, which hears administrative challenges, have been vying recently over the board’s proper role in the patent system.
Loh pointed to a new appeal of a decision from the Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) Precedential Opinion Panel in DynaEnergetics Europe GmbH (NF) v. Hunting Titan Inc (NF). The panel held the PTAB can “in certain rare circumstances” raise invalidity grounds in inter partes review that a party didn’t advance or sufficiently develop. Hunting Titan says the agency doesn’t have authority to craft new rules without notice and comment.
The decision is an “illustration of a broader trend between the Federal Circuit and the PTAB over which body gets to say what procedures apply in IPRs and whether the PTAB has the ability to set its own rules when it comes to procedural issues that aren’t related to institution,” Loh said.
Click here to access the article.