In an unusually favorable month for patent owners, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued 75 Final Written Decisions in March, and cancelled 540 (48.04%) of the instituted claims while declining to cancel 578 (51.42%) of the instituted claims. Patent owners conceded 6 (0.53%) instituted claims through motions to amend or disclaimer in cases reaching a final decision. In contrast, the cumulative average rate of claims cancelled in final written decisions is about 74%.
On a per-case basis, no instituted or substitute claims survived in 35 (46.67%) of the decisions, all instituted claims survived in 32 (42.67%) of the decisions, and a mixed outcome occurred in 8 (10.67%) of the decisions. A mixed outcome occurs where at least one instituted or substitute claim remains patentable, and at least one is cancelled, in a Final Written Decision.
The overall cumulative instituted claim survival rate, broken down by technology center, is as follows:
More detailed cumulative statistics on the Board's IPR and CBM decisions, updated through March 1, 2017, are available here on the AIA Blog.
Statistics regarding the outcome of appeals to the Federal Circuit are available here.
Lists of the top 10 PTAB judges by panel appearances and authored opinions are available here.
Numbers of final written decisions by technology center and instituted claim survival rates by technology center are available here.
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