Bracewell’s Kit Crumbley, a former lead administrative patent judge, told Managing Intellectual Property that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s recent decision to abandon Fintiv guidance could make putting together PTAB petitions more challenging.
“Once you file a petition, that’s your case. And so having the one year of breathing room that the America Invents Act gives you to file a petition really is useful in making sure you draft the best petition that you can.”
Crumbley added that the 2022 guidance provided a little bit more stability and certainty in how the individual panels of the board decided whether to discretionarily deny under Fintiv.
“If we’re going back to a world where we don’t have that anymore, I think we’ll see a period of a lot more variation from panel to panel in how cases are handled.”
