Draft Rules Released by USPTO to Transition to New Inter Partes Review Proceeding

Upon enactment of the America Invents Act on September 16, 2011, the USPTO was forced to change their previous SNQ based analysis for granting a request for inter partes patent reexamination.  The new standard for any such request filed on or after September 16, 2011 is a reasonable likelihood that the requester would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the request.  This new standard will apply to all inter partes patent reexamination filings going forward.  (See  6(c)(3)(C) of H.R. 1249.

On the one year anniversary of enactment, Section 314 of the AIA will go into effect to apply the same standard for Inter Partes Review. That is to say, inter partes patent reexamination filings will no longer be accepted on September 16, 2012. (existing proceedings will continue through to completion)

A copy of the draft rule package to implement these changes is found (here).

Additional memos to the Examining Corps on newly effective  provisions of the AIA were distributed this past Tuesday.

Tax Strategies Memo (here)

Best Mode Memo (here)

Patenting of Human Organism Memo (here)