The Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued 41 Final Written Decisions in May. It was a relatively patentee-friendly month, with the Board cancelling 269 (48.04%) of the instituted claims while declining to cancel 287 (51.25%) of the instituted claims. Patent owners conceded 4 (0.71%) instituted claims through motions to amend or disclaimer in cases reaching a final decision. For comparison, the cumulative average rate of claims cancelled in final written decisions is about 75%.
On a per-case basis, no instituted or substitute claims survived in 20 (48.78%) of the decisions, all instituted claims survived in 14 (34.15%) of the decisions, and a mixed outcome occurred in 7 (17.07%) of the decisions. A mixed outcome occurs where at least one instituted or substitute claim remains patentable, and at least one is cancelled, in a Final Written Decision.
The overall cumulative instituted claim survival rate, broken down by technology center, is as follows:
More detailed cumulative statistics on the Board's IPR and CBM decisions, updated through June 1, 2017, are available here on the AIA Blog.
Statistics regarding the outcome of appeals to the Federal Circuit are available here.
Lists of the top 10 PTAB judges by panel appearances and authored opinions are available here.
Numbers of final written decisions by technology center and instituted claim survival rates by technology center are available here.
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