Tonight, I was curious how many people are taking advantage of the America Invents Act (AIA) procedures such as inter partes review and preissuance submission. I started by checking on the USPTO web site, which has a page AIA statistics that gives the raw number of filings for the AIA procedures from their inception on September 16, 2012 up to June 30, 2014.
First, some AIA procedures are being increasingly used while others are ignored. For example, inter partes review is more often than not the key strategy to consider if you have been sued for patent infringement. Thus, I expect patent infringement actions without a concurrent inter partes review to become even more rare (i.e., Concurrent court/USPTO cases are about 2/3) as defendants become aware of the benefits. In contrast, covered business method patent review filings don't appear be increasing in a big way due to the subject matter restriction, and perhaps because inter partes review is more cost effective. We don't know much about post-grant review just yet, since the first petition was just filed and we still don't have that many issued US patents filed after March 16, 2013.
As far as the other administrative procedures, preissuance submission is seeing only a modest number of filings (e.g., 100 filings is a good month!) given the number of applications pending in the USPTO. Supplemental examination has seen surprisingly little use (e.g., 7 filings per month).
Note the raw filings do not indicate they complied with US patent law and regulations.
Also see the USPTO data for the administrative trials at the
PRPS Filing
System.
Copyright © 2014 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
