Acting US Patent and Trademark Office Director Coke Morgan Stewart recently turned away a series of challenges to a medical device company’s patents, determining the petitioner should have disputed them much earlier. Stewart’s decision is based on a new form of discretionary denial.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time an [inter partes review] has been discretionally denied because of the age of the patent,” Bracewell’s Kit Crumbley told Law360.
An accused infringer has one year to file a petition for inter partes review after being sued for infringement. Absent such litigation, the America Invents Act does not have a set time period by which a petition must be filed after learning of possible infringement.
