On April 27, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), both members of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, wrote to Kathi Vidal, the newly confirmed Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), to inquire as to why the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is allowing itself to become weaponized. “We write to express our concern about the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) recent decisions to institute inter partes reviews (IPRs) in OpenSky Industries, LLC v. VLSI Technology LLC and Patent Quality Assurance, LLC v. VLSI Technology LLC,” wrote Hirono and Tillis, who would go on to point out that the “facts and circumstances” suggest that the challengers “brought the proceedings to manipulate the [USPTO] for their own financial gain.”
Recent Posts
- CAFC Upholds Win for Janssen on Patent for Antipsychotic Med Dosing Regimen
- IP Innovators – From Patent Office to Managing Partner: Chris Agrawal’s Journey
- In Sonos v. Google, the Federal Circuit Has a Chance to Fix Its Prosecution Laches Doctrine
- Perspectives on the PTAB’s 70% All Claims Invalidation Rate
- Moratorium on State AI Regulation Scrapped in Senate Version of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’