HTIA and 14 Other Organizations Raise IPR Concerns with Judiciary Committees

Letter expresses their concern that Congress’s efforts to mitigate the harm of low-quality patents and abusive litigation are being unraveled, and to ask that Congress investigate policy directives implemented and actions taken by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) which have significantly weakened inter partes review (“IPR”). The PTAB is increasingly refusing to institute otherwise-meritorious IPR petitions for purely procedural reasons. And it is doing so through self-declared precedential decisions that promulgate new PTAB policies without notice-and-comment rulemaking or the possibility of judicial review. We are concerned that the current trend—and its problematic consequences—will continue unchecked unless Congress intervenes. View the House letter here and the Senate letter here.