Is PTAB a Patent “Death Squad?”

Some labels stick far beyond the point where they’re accurate. Such is the case with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, or PTAB. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office launched PTAB almost four years ago as an alternative to litigating the validity of patents.

Within a little more of than a year, PTAB got branded with a label. Randall Rader, then the Chief Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, foisted the term “death squads” onto the three-member panels of administrative patent judges who decide patents’ fates.