Over the last decade, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has emerged as the nation's busiest patent court, litigating a large number of patent validity disputes through inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. Patent Office Director Kathi Vidal has been very active since she was sworn in six months ago. The new director has invoked her director review power to reconsider the board's decisions 10 times, issuing six decisions to date spanning a broad range of issues. Below is a snapshot of her director review decisions so far, and a preview of what is on the horizon.

Sanctions

In the first director review to be decided after briefing, OpenSky Industries v. VLSI Technology, this recent decision is brimming with allegations of misconduct. The director summarized the unusual circumstances in this IPR in a 52-page opinion. She determined that petitioner OpenSky abused the IPR process by filing its petition for the improper purpose of extracting payment from both VLSI and accused infringer Intel, and further engaged in discovery misconduct by failing to comply with director-ordered discovery. The director imposed sanctions, appointing Intel as lead petitioner and ordering OpenSky to show cause why it should not be ordered to pay compensatory expenses for its abuse of process. On Monday, after VLSI objected, the director issued another director review to consider whether the IPR proceeding should be allowed to proceed. Events in this review are still unfolding and there is certainly more to come in the next month or two.