TAPP Signs Onto Coalition Letter Supporting USPTO Proposed Rulemaking to Improve PTAB Practices

The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity joined a coalition of more than 20 organizations in sending a letter to the White House today, supporting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to improve the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) practices for instituting inter partes review. 

In the letter, the coalition wrote, “The proposal would help restore fairness, efficiency, and predictability to patent adjudication. Such are principles that Congress pledged in the America Invents Act (AIA), but that years of serial and duplicative challenges and bias for patent claim invalidation have eroded.”

The coalition also noted, “Reliable patent rights are the lifeblood of America’s innovation economy. They give investors the confidence to finance risky, long-horizon research and allow small inventors and startups to compete on equal footing with well-established firms. When patents can be relitigated endlessly before multiple tribunals, investment dries up, technology transfer stalls, and only the largest firms, with the resources to absorb the cost of serial proceedings, can compete… The proposal will also allow USPTO to redirect its limited resources to its core mission of examining and issuing patents. These reforms will help 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.