"Offensive or Defensive: Which Side Are You On?"
Below is an excerpt:
Your company can use inter partes reviews (IPRs) either offensively or defensively to achieve business goals. On offence, you can eliminate a competitor’s patent by filing a petition to have the patent reviewed again and hopefully invalidated by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). On defence, you may have to defend the validity of your patent after sending a cease-and-desist letter to a competitor or after filing a complaint alleging patent infringement. Over the past year and a half, IPRs have resulted in about 70% of patent claims being invalidated – great when you are on offence but, obviously, not so great when you are on defence.
Originally published in Intellectual Property Magazine, May 2015