Past Three Months of PTAB Statistics Tell A Different Story
Last week, I explained that the institution rate of PTAB trials in Inter Partes Review (IPR) and Covered Business Method (CBM) proceedings had dropped, on average, by roughly 10 percentage points in the past year. However, the averaging of 2012-14 proceedings does not tell the current story. Whether you agree with my explanation of this recent phenomena as a reflection of poor petition quality or not, there is clearly a heightened focus on the preliminary proceeding (i.e., petition stage).
What was left out of last week’s post was a snap shot of what is actually going on at the PTAB today— the effective institution rate right now.
Below is an overall chart of institution decisions from January 2013. As you can see, the uptick in petition denials over the past few months is quite pronounced.
Taking a closer look at decisions from April 20, 2014 — July 20, 2014 (below), institution denials have risen dramatically. Of course, as also shown by the above chart the number of total institution decisions being issued by the PTAB has tripled since the beginning of 2013, and will double, and even triple from current numbers in the months ahead. Perhaps an indication of the steady-state to come is the snapshot of the last 3 months.
As you can see, over the past 3 months, 42% of petitions were granted as to all claims, coupled with the 26% partial grant rate, yielding a 68% overall grant rate.
Over the past 3 months 32% of all petitions were denied outright, and 58% included at least one denied claim.
This is a far cry from the 85%+ institution rate decried by PTAB critics in months past.