Proving "Prior Art" At The PTAB

The new patent trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") at the U.S. Patent Office have become a popular forum for challenging U.S. patent claims. These new trials went into effect just 3 years ago and since then almost 4000 petitions have been filed.¹ And almost 7500 claims have been canceled.² To challenge claims, a Petitioner files a petition and identifies grounds of unpatentability that can include challenges based on prior art patents or publications.³ In addition to presenting arguments and positions to show how the prior art render the challenged claims unpatentable, a Petitioner must also provide enough evidence to show that the documents relied are indeed publically available prior art.⁴