Discretionary Denials of Inter Partes Review: Recent Developments and a Peek Into the Future

Since their creation as an administrative procedure under the America Invents Act (AIA) in 2012, inter partes reviews (IPRs) have been a useful tool for parties accused of patent infringement to challenge the validity of the patents asserted against them. As remarked by the Supreme Court, a key purpose of the creation of IPRs was to afford the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) “significant power to revisit and revise earlier patent grants [by] screen[ing] out bad patents while bolstering valid ones.”