The US Patent and Trademark Office has seen sweeping changes under Director John Squires and Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart. As a result of those changes, the amount of ex parte appeals before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is significantly decreasing and the attrition of patent examiners is climbing.
“The math is straightforward: The PTAB is currently deciding roughly 300 more ex parte appeals than it’s receiving each month,” Bracewell’s Kit Crumbley told Law360. “With current inventory around 2,250 cases, they’ll exhaust it in approximately seven months unless they dramatically reduce output.”
