The Surprising Efficacy of Inter Partes Reexaminations

In creating inter partes reexamination, Congress hoped to provide a faster, cheaper alternative for resolving questions of patent validity in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) rather than in the courts. As a measure of the procedure’s growing popularity and availability, the rate of requests for inter partes reexamination has steadily increased each year, totaling over 308 since the procedure was created in November 1999. But, while the pace of reexam requests continues to increase, the end results of completed proceedings have received relatively little attention.

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