TAPP Signs Onto Coalition Letter Supporting USPTO Improved Practices

The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity recently signed onto a conservative coalition letter supporting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to improve the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) practices for instituting inter partes review (IPR) challenges (Docket No. PTO-P-2025-0025).

The proposal would improve the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s practices for instituting inter partes review challenges. It would help restore fairness, efficiency, and predictability to patent adjudication, principles that Congress pledged in the America Invents Act but which years of serial and duplicative challenges and bias for patent claim invalidation have eroded.

In part, the letter says, “Congress intended IPRs to serve as a faster, less costly alternative to district court litigation, not a second front for infringers to attack patents until they are worn down or invalidated. Yet today, more than half of IPR petitions—filed by the same large corporations such as Apple, Microsoft, and others—represent repeat challenges against the same patent. More than 80 percent of IPRs overlap with ongoing litigation. This has created a system that multiplies uncertainty and imposes duplicative costs on inventors, the opposite of the efficient alternative Congress promised… By limiting duplicative challenges, the NPRM’s framework channels patent disputes to a single forum. By reserving exceptions for truly extraordinary circumstances, cost and delay will be reduced for all participants. The proposal will also allow USPTO to redirect its limited resources to its core mission of examining and issuing patents. These reforms will make PTAB proceedings what Congress intended: a focused, efficient, and fair mechanism to resolve legitimate validity questions without undermining confidence in issued patents.”

Read the full letter here.