Fish & Richardson Tops List of Busiest Firms at Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Fish & Richardson has been named one of the busiest firms at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), according to a recent Lex Machina report that analyzed all of the America Invents Act (AIA) reviews filed through 2015. Fish represented clients in a total of 380 AIA review cases, including 234 cases in which it represented the petitioner - the most of any firm - and 146 cases in which it represented the patent owner. Only three firms - including Fish - handled over 350 PTAB cases, with Fish essentially tied for first place in the ranking.

"Fish brings a powerful combination of technical know-how, patent prosecution skills, and litigation savvy to our PTAB work on behalf of clients," said Karl Renner, co-chair of Fish & Richardson's Post-Grant Practice Group. "Our post-grant teams include both experienced patent practitioners and seasoned IP litigators working together to leverage these proceedings to advance our clients' business objectives and complement their patent litigation strategies. This is what differentiates us

The Lex Machina Patent Trial and Appeal Board 2015 Report evaluated data about all of the AIA reviews that have been filed since the system became available in 2012, through December 2015, including those that are pending. Overall, there have been more than 4,300 AIA petitions filed since the inception of the new AIA rules.

According to Law360's interview with Brian Howard from Lex Machina, "the report also challenges the popular notion that the PTAB is a 'death squad' that is aggressively invalidating patents at a high rate. People making such arguments tend to look only at the results of cases in which the PTAB instituted review of a patent…and ignore the fact that the PTAB never institutes review of many patents that are challenged."