inventors

In an ex parte appeal, an applicant seeks to demonstrate to a three-judge panel that the examiner erred in rejecting the claimed invention and that the rejection should be reversed. In this way, the PTAB functions as a quality control check on examination to ensure that examiners make correct patentability decisions.

The landmark America Invents Act produced a tribunal within the USPTO that was also unprecedented—the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Formed on Sept. 16, 2012, the PTAB is designed to streamline the process for determining issues of patentability. Its predecessor tribunal was called the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI).