Washington – U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) have introduced the Restoring the America Invents Act, a bill which would update the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) and the inter partes review (IPR) procedure the PTAB administers. The bill would eliminate the Fintiv discretionary denial process created by former Director Iancu, provide for an enhanced determination for litigation stays, and overturn court decisions that limited access to IPR and created a loophole by which patent owners could obtain amended claims without substantive examination.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Patent Counsel Joshua Landau:
“Senator Leahy’s America Invents Act reduced the cost and frequency of patent litigation by creating the inter partes review process. Unfortunately, former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu exceeded his statutory authority by restricting access to IPR through the Fintiv rule, reversing the successful AIA.
“The bi-partisan Restoring the America Invents Act, introduced by Senators Leahy and Cornyn, would improve IPR, ensuring that bad patents don’t get to stay in force and allowing innovators to take the money they would have spent on legal fees and use it to hire new people and create new inventions.
CCIA fully supports this bill and hopes it will be enacted into law swiftly.”
The full announcement about the bill from Sens. Leahy and Cornyn is available here.