U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal assumed her role in April 2022 and has since made a significant impact. She has issued key guidance on discretionary denials and taken a firsthand approach to director reviews that attorneys cite as helping make the board more predictable.
Finnegan partner Cory Bell told Law360 that Vidal's actions have led to greater certainty for Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) practitioners. "She's clearly spent a lot of effort paying attention to decisions where she can issue guidance on particular fact patterns to make things clearer for attorneys, which makes it a lot easier for us to advise clients," Cory said. "When you no longer have risks of panel-dependent outcomes, it makes it a lot easier for a client to make a decision on what to do."
Cory also said it appears the director has been stepping into specific cases to set bounds for recurring issues, which he said is creating more certainty, especially for petitioners who must decide whether to expend resources to file a petition. "It can be painful if you're denied under discretionary grounds when it's something you didn't know would happen. Knowing the bounds makes it easier to make those decisions,” he said.
