To handle the potentially crushing wave of IPR appeals, the Federal Circuit has adopted two tools to manage its caseload—designating cases as companion cases and combining cases through consolidation. Due to the nature of IPR proceedings, the Patent Office frequently hears multiple individual cases that involve common claim construction or validity issues for related patents in the same family. To take advantage of these common issues, the Court often deems related cases as companion cases at the appeal stage, and sometimes combines them through consolidation. An analysis of the Court's use of these tools can be found on Finnegan's Federal Circuit IP Blog.
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