Powerful Tool Against Method Patents Little Used in 2017

According to Bloomberg Law data, challenges at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to the validity of business method patents decreased by 62% in 2017. Bloomberg BNA reached to Finnegan attorney Erika Arner for her thoughts on this decline.  

Erika said "The decline in CBM challenges seems to demonstrate that the law is working as intended. While there may still be some bad business method patents out there, they are not being asserted as frequently, likely because the patent owners recognize the threat of CBM." Congress did not intend for the CBM program to be permanent, as it is set to expire in 2020. The goal was for it to be a transitional program that canceled patents thought to have been improperly issued by the USPTO in the late 1990s and 2000s. Erika said, "The declining filings indicate that the eight-year sunset period Congress set was just about right."