Below is an except of an opinion piece written by Unified’s CEO and Co-Founder, Kevin Jakel, for IPWatchdog.com.
“[The PTAB] has been successful over the years in checking significant numbers of asserted invalid patents, by some measures saving the U.S. economy billions of dollars over…. And yet, many self-interested parties would rather the PTAB not exist, and are suggesting the OpenSky email is evidence of systemic malaise.”
You’ve probably heard about all of the VLSI drama: the eye-popping $2.18 billion judgment won by non-practicing entity (NPE) VLSI (funded by Fortress IP), mysterious post-judgment inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed against the VLSI patents, and finally the now-notorious email from OpenSky offering to disrupt their own IPR in exchange for a fee. Folks have jumped all over the email from OpenSky for its obvious bad behavior, but they are also using it as an indictment of the entire Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). What is noteworthy here is not the email—this type of behavior is extremely rare. The real story here is what the system got right, and where it failed.