The latest memo from the US Patent and Trademark Office adds to the list of discretionary factors to be considered when deciding whether to institute of inter partes reviews and post grant reviews. The first and second factors appear to favor protection of patents owned or licensed by American manufacturers, while the third seems to provide additional protections to patents infringed by large businesses as opposed to small ones.
“A charitable reading is that this is an attempt to use patent office policy to then affect trade policy, which is certainly novel,” Bracewell’s Kit Crumbley, a former administrative patent judge at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, told IAM.
“I don’t know how many corporations are going to be making manufacturing decisions based on the availability of IPR. It’s a very small tool to try and pull a very big lever,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s going to make a difference to the Samsungs or the Apples of the world.”
