Karl Renner, Principal and Post-Grant Practice Co-Chair, was quoted in Managing Intellectual Property‘s article "Ruschke Leaves ‘Big Shoes to Fill’ for Next PTAB Chief Judge” on September 10, 2018.
Karl Renner, principal at Fish & Richardson, states: “David’s successor is going to have big shoes to fill. He did a great job of focusing on the fairness and order of the proceedings, which at the end of the day is one of the most important jobs as a chief.”
Amid the sudden uncertainty at the PTAB after the Supreme Court's SAS Institute decision, Ruschke hosted a ” Chat with the Chief” webinar to engage with people directly, and released official guidance soon after. “His handling of SAS was remarkable,” says Renner.”That would have been difficult for anyone to achieve, so David deserves tremendous credit for the way he handled it.”
Regarding [interim chief judge Scott] Boalick specifically, Fish & Richardson’s Renner says: “Scott has been there since the beginning, and he’s the most understated person in the room. For those familiar with the system, they know Scott has had a very active hand.”
Precedent would lean [toward choosing someone from outside the USPTO] as well; Renner states: “In the past they’ve chosen people who come from in-house positions who want to effect change, and it makes sense. There are a lot of policy considerations that are undertaken by people that are in-house, and this is a position that has great influence on policy.”
Broadly speaking, the PTAB is in an era of change. Renner explains: “The director (Andrei Iancu) is looking at these proceedings and testing various aspects of them, and asking for a renewed view. A new chief is going to be crucial to what is done and how to do it.”
If Oil States had gone the other way, it would have “brought the house down,” says Renner. “With these [other constitutional challenges],” he says, “you can change the structure of the system fairly easily to make sure that you could still conduct proceedings constitutionally.”
Read the full article here.
