Inter Partes Review Is Here To Stay In Modified Form

In a previous post here, we described constitutional and procedural challenges to inter partes review ("IPR") in the Oil States and SAS Institute cases taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. We also posted here on Allergan's attempt to avoid an IPR by assigning its challenged patents to an American Indian tribe that claims tribal sovereign immunity, an apparent insurance policy in case the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of IPR. In April, as widely-anticipated, the Supreme Court rejected the constitutional challenge to IPR in the Oil States case. However, Allergan's insurance policy may never pay out – in late July, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected the applicability of tribal sovereign immunity to IPR. Thus, IPR is here to stay for the foreseeable future and the tribal sovereign immunity play looks to be on its last legs. There is, however, one crumb of comfort for critics of IPR – the Supreme Court's SAS Institute decision, also in April,