Source: http://www.ptabblog.law/?p=488
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:35:36+00:00

Document:
Since the enactment of the America Invents Act in September 2012, the USPTO has evaluated a patent’s validity in post-grant proceedings1 with a broader claim construction standard than used by federal District Courts. The USPTO’s use of this broader standard may have contributed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) tendency to invalidate patents more often than District Courts.
Federal courts and the International Trade Commission (ITC) use a purportedly different claim construction standard for unexpired claims, known as the Phillips standard.
On May 9, 2018, the USPTO issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes to change the claim construction standard for unexpired claims in post-grant proceedings from the BRI standard to the Phillips standard.9 Specifically, the proposed rule would amend 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.100, 42.200, and 42.300 as follows.
Even more, the USPTO states that “consistent with Phillips and its progeny, the doctrine of construing claims to preserve their validity would apply to AIA trials.”12 It is not clear how this would affect, or be affected by, the PTAB’s evidentiary standard. Federal courts presume that patent claims are valid, and thus require clear and convincing evidence (the highest evidentiary standard in civil disputes) before invalidating a patent. The PTAB, however, requires only a preponderance of evidence and, therefore, does not presume that patent claims are valid.
The USPTO proposed also that “[a]ny prior claim construction determination concerning a term of the claim in a civil action, or a proceeding before the International Trade Commission, that is timely made of record in the . . . proceeding will be considered.”13 The notice does not define what constitutes a “timely” motion.
According to the USPTO, “[b]ecause the BRI standard potentially reads on a broader universe of prior art than does the Phillips standard, a patent claim could be found unpatentable in an AIA trial on account of claims scope that the patent owner would not be able to assert in an infringement proceeding.”14 In short, the USPTO believes that the differing standards cause the shield to be weaker than the sword, and thus makes patent rights less reliable for patent owners.
For those who are closely tracking this development, it is important to keep in mind that the USPTO is not obligated to promulgate this new rule within a specific period of time after the comment period ends on July 9, 2018. In fact, the USPTO is not obligated to promulgate this rule at all. Also, it may promulgate a new rule that is different than the one proposed in this notice. In short, nothing is certain at this point.
This being said, any retroactive application of this new rule may be useful during the window of time in which one may “timely” submit to the PTAB a claim construction from previous federal litigation. Moreover, while arguing invalidity contentions, petitioners and patent owners should keep the above described policy concerns in mind and not assume that a BRI type of argument will apply for either preserving validity or seeking invalidity.
1 Post-grant proceedings include Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs), post-grant reviews (PGRs), and CBM reviews (CBMs).
2 37 C.F.R. 42.100(b)(emphasis added)(stating the standard for IPRs); see also 37 C.F.R. 42.200(b)(stating the standard for PGRs); 37 C.F.R. 42.300(b)(stating the standard for CBMs).
3 The MPEP is a guidance document issued by the USPTO to its employees. Although federal courts do not consider guidance documents to be law, courts often consider guidance documents to be persuasive.
4 Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, 9th ed., rev 08.2017, § 2111.01 (Jan. 2018) [hereinafter “MPEP”](emphasis added).
5 Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312-13 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
6 Brief for the Supreme Court as Amicus Curiae at 6, Cuozzo Speed v. Lee, 136 S.Ct. 2131 (2016) (No. 15-446).
7 PPC Broadband v. Corning Optical Communications, 815 F.3d 734, 742 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
8 PPC Broadband v. Corning Optical Communications, 815 F.3d 747, 756 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
13 Id. at 21,224 (emphasis added).
16 Because this proposed rule involves only rules of agency procedure and interpretation, and not substantive criteria of patentability, the USPTO states that prior notice and comment are not required under 5 U.S.C. § 553. See id. Nonetheless, the USPTO voluntary published the proposal for comment by the public. See id.
This is a scholarly presentation of relevant history, discussion and argument surrounding how the USPTO has evaluated a patent’s validity in post-grant proceedings with a broader claim construction standard than used by federal District Courts.

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