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After over a yr and a half on the helm of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO), Director Kathi Vidal has made vital and lasting impacts on the Patent Trial and Enchantment Board (PTAB) by way of a wide range of totally different actions, together with Director Critiques, issuing steering, designating further circumstances as precedential, issuing sanctions sua sponte, and returning establishment charges to 2016 ranges. All indicators level to continuation of further modifications underneath her continued management, based mostly on numerous proposed rulemaking bulletins and the USPTO’s present Strategic Plan.
Maybe the biggest influence that Director Vidal has had upon the PTAB is has been by way of Director Critiques. The U.S. Supreme Court docket’s choice in United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 141 S.Ct. 1970 (2021), mandated Director Critiques to appropriate what the case deemed procedural defects in the best way that administrative patent judges are appointed to the PTAB. Though the interim Director Overview process was put in place earlier than Director Vidal was in workplace, previous to her tenure solely 5 out of the 189 requests filed have been granted, in accordance with PTAB-published statistics. In accordance with those self same statistics, underneath Director Vidal a complete of 41 Director Critiques have been issued as of this writing, with most being issued sua sponte by the Director and only a handful of them ensuing from events’ requests for Director Overview. Thus, Director Vidal has taken critically the mandate of the Arthrex case and has been a really lively in clarifying PTAB procedures and precedent by way of sua sponte Director Critiques.
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