The PTAB petition is one of the most important pieces of
evidence put before the board. It collects all of a client's
arguments in one place. This submission is going to be the first
foray for a client with respect to the PTAB. It is also going to
contain most of the arguments the client's attorney is going to
make during the course of the proceedings. It's a very
substantial and a very important piece of any strategy and it
requires a lot of planning to get it right. It's not something
that can be simply, quickly and submit it, only to be fixed later.
It really is something that requires a great deal of care.
The PTAB process is different from district court litigation.
There's as much art here as there is science. The objective is
to choose arguments that are going to provide the best combinations
of assertions before the board, while laying out a menu of options
that the board can choose to institute for trial.
It's important to have thoughts and arguments organized and to
have everything in that very first submission, which means it's
important to make a client aware of the level of organization
required.
The objective is to assemble all of the evidence that the attorneys
will rely on and this is really a vehicle for getting the case
before the board. It's not just a question of laying out one
argument after another. It's figuring out how they'll best
fit together for a coherent presentation to the board. For that
reason, it's important for a client to give his or herself
extra time to make sure the evidence is assembled.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
