Ilan Barzilay Quoted in Law360
"Patent Reform Bill Could Shift More Disputes to USPTO"

Seyfarth Shaw Boston office partner Ilan Barzilay was quoted in Law360 on September 13. The article discussed the potential impacts of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, a recent patent reform bill, which will likely increase the number of patent challenges before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) while decreasing the amount of multidefendant litigation and lawsuits.

According to the article, the bill's provisions aim to:

• allow for a broader procedure for parties to oppose any patent in any technology area at the USPTO; however, the post-grant review must take place within nine months of a patent's grant;
• restrict the filing of suits alleging a company has falsely marked its products with an expired or inapplicable patent to the government or parties that have suffered competitive harm; and
• make it easier for banks and financial institutions to invalidate business method patents in an administrative proceeding before the USPTO because less evidence is required for invalidating these patents in this type of proceeding than in a federal court proceeding.

Ilan commented that the move of bringing more cases before the USPTO will be gradual. He said, "Post-grant review proceedings may be appealing, but I would not be surprised if it takes several years for those to come into vogue. The same was true for inter partes re-exams. It took practitioners and clients time to warm up to the idea."