Rules of Practice for Trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and Judicial Review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board Decisions

On August 14, 2012, changes to implement the Rules of Practice for Trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and Judicial Review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board Decisions provisions of the America Invents Act were published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The rules can be found here:
http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/general_trial_rules.pdf

The changes in this final rule take effect on September 16, 2012.

The final rule provides a consolidated set of rules relating to Board trial practice for inter partes review, post-grant review, the transitional program for covered business method patents, and derivation proceedings. This final rule also provides a consolidated set of rules to implement the provisions of the AIA related to seeking judicial review of Board decisions. 

The final rule sets forth (1) the evidentiary standards, procedure, and default times for conducting trial proceedings; (2) the fees for requesting reviews; (3) the procedure for petition and motion practice; (4) the page limits for petitions, motions, oppositions, and replies; (5) the standards and procedures for discovery of relevant evidence, including the procedure for taking and compelling testimony; (6) the sanctions for abuse of discovery, abuse of process, or any other improper use of the proceeding; (7) the procedure for requesting oral hearings; (8) the procedure for requesting rehearing of decisions and filing appeals; (9) the procedure for requesting joinder; and (10) the procedure to make file records available to the public that include the procedures for motions to seal, protective orders for confidential information, and requests to treat settlement as business confidential information.