A Panel Discussion: Ex Parte Reexam As an Alternative to Inter Partes Review

Though ex parte reexamination (“EPX”) has been available to the public for about four decades, its popularity has increased dramatically over the past few years.  However, EPX has procedural and substantive differences with other post-grant proceedings, such as inter partes review (“IPR”), that raise interesting strategic considerations for patent owners and patent challengers alike. For example, considerations of cost, statutory grounds, estoppel, availability, and timing that differ between these proceedings are some of the issues that parties often weigh when formulating litigation strategies.

Virtual Patent Gateway (VPG) has put together a panel of PTAB practitioners, including both experienced CRU practitioners and rising young stars, to shed light on some of these issues. The panel will also address recent changes to the USPTO’s electronic filing system (“Patent Center”), as well as the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in In re Vivint, Inc., 14 F.4th 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2021), in which the court…