An Inter Partes Review (IPR) is an avenue of post-grant review that the America Invents Act (AIA) introduced on September 16, 2012. A petitioner for an IPR may request to cancel as unpatentable one or more claims of an issued patent on the basis of prior art consisting of patents or printed publications. There are several advantages of filing a petition for an IPR, including that IPRs are viewed as a cost-effective alternative to litigation.

Since their inception, IPRs have become an increasingly popular strategy among patent practitioners. For example, in 2013, 514 IPR petitions were filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). As of May 15, 2014, however, 640 IPR petitions have already been filed with the PTAB. This already represents about a 25% increase in IPR petition filings prior to the completion of five months of the 2014 year.

Additionally, not only are more IPR petitions being filed, but the percentage of patent owner preliminary responses filed has also increased. In 2013, patent owners filed a preliminary response to IPR petitions about 46% of the time, however, as of May 15, 2014, patent owners have filed a preliminary response to IPR petitions about 62% of the time.                        

Further, the number of PTAB trials instituted based on IPR petitions have increased from a trial being instituted about 32% of the time in 2013 to about 49% of the time as of May 15, 2014. 

Given the advantages of using the IPR process, we anticipate that the popularity of using IPRs as an alternative to litigation will continue to grow in the future.