The PTAB is a “death squad” eager to cancel patent claims in IPRs.
Only 9% of all filed IPRs resulted in any patent claim being invalidated.
As of February 15, 2019, only 5,954 patents of an estimated 3 million patents in force had been challenged at the PTAB -- less than 0.2%.
Even fewer patents have been cancelled by the PTAB. As of Dec. 31, 2018, only 1,303 patents or about 0.04%—of active patents have been invalidated in a PTAB trial.
[Source: Data from Lex Machina]
Patents are almost always cancelled in an IPR.
At the recent Corporate Intellectual Property Strategy Conference in Santa Clara, California, Chief Judge Ruschke debunked the notion that most patents die in front of the PTAB, stating that only about 30 percent of patents challenged at the PTAB have all their claims invalidated.
IPRs and CBMs hurt innovation.
Since IPRs and CBMs were enacted in 2012:
[Source: PwC Strategy& Global Innovation 1000]
[Source: Kauffman Index of Startup Activity]
[Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis data]
IPRs promote “gang tackling” and “coordinated attacks” where multiple petitions are frequently filed against the same patent.
Multiple petitions are rare. Only about 12% of challenged patents have more than two petitions. Less than 4% of challenged patents have more than four petitions.
Source: June 29, 2017 PTAB State of the Board Presentation, Slide 13
Defendants file IPRs for nearly every district court case, increasing delays and costs.
The vast majority of time, defendants do not file IPRs after being sued in district court. In 2016, over 86% of district court patent cases did not involve a subsequent IPR.
[Source: Lex Machina Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) 2017 Report (June 2017), page 12]
