USPTO Leadership

• Drew Hirshfeld is still performing the functions and duties of Director. The Biden Administration has not made an announcement as to who will be nominated to become the next Director. 
• David L. Berdan, the USPTO’s former General Counsel, began performing the functions and duties of the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO on Monday, August 23, following the news that Coke Stewart will be departing the agency. 

US v. Arthrex

• Drew Hirshfeld issued decisions in the first two cases (IPR2020-00081 and IPR2020-00320) for which interim Director review of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) Final Written Decision were requested.

USPTO News

• The USPTO will be discontinuing the standalone Sponsorship Tool on September 15, 2021. The same features can be accessed using the “Sponsor Users” option in Patent Center.
• The USPTO hosted a webinar and will host an encore webinar on America Invents Act (AIA) oral arguments on September 8 and 17 as part of the PTAB's Legal Experience and Advancement Program (LEAP) (register for the webinar here and for the encore here).
• Drew Hirshfeld, performing the functions and duties of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, and David Gooder, Commissioner for Trademarks at the USPTO released a blog post on the Director’s Forum discussing the USPTO’s comprehensive strategy to fight trademark fraud.
• The USPTO published an update to a study on Orange Book and biologic patents at the PTAB.

Notices, Guidance, and Requests

• Performance Review Board (PRB), 86 Fed. Reg. 147 (August 4, 2021) (Providing notice of members of the USPTO’s PRB). 

Final Rules

• There are no new final rules.

Interim Rules

• There are no new interim rules.

Proposed Rules

• There are no new proposed rules.

PTAB Decisions

New Precedential PTAB Decisions 

• There are no new precedential PTAB decisions.

New Informative PTAB Decisions 

• There are no new informative PTAB decisions.

New Requests for POP Review

• Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. v. Seagen Inc., PGR2021-00030, -00042 [Notification of Receipt of POP Request issued August 3, 2021; Notification of Receipt of Amicus Forms received August 11, 2021] [Petitioner requests review to determine (1) “[w]hether NHK Spring and Fintiv should apply to post-grant review (“PGR”) proceedings” and (2) “[w]hether NHK Spring and Fintiv should apply to proceedings where none of the challenged patent claims is at issue in parallel district court litigation.”]
• Ford Motor Co. v. Ethanol Boosting Sys., LLC, IPR2021-00339, -00340, -00341 [Notification of Receipt of POP Request issued August 9, 2021] [Petitioner requests review to determine (1) “[w]hether 37 C.F.R § 104(b)(3) requires that a Petitioner assert a claim construction that it agrees with in a Petition,” (2) “[w]hether a non-final, non-binding, and actively appealed district court decision on claim construction should be adopted in an inter partes review proceeding (with a different record) when petitioner’s claim construction is undisputed in that proceeding,” and (3) “[w]hether, as a matter of policy, the Board should hold its decision on institution in abeyance when a district court claim construction that was adopted by the Board is not final due to a pending appeal.”]
• Duke Mfg. Co. v. Low Temp Indus, Inc., IPR2021-00415 [Notification of Receipt of POP Request issued August 10, 2021] [Patent Owner requests review to determine (1) “[w]hether the Board should institute an IPR where the district court has issued a substantive preliminary injunction ruling deciding the same invalidity issues between the same parties and institution would guarantee duplication of effort between tribunals," (2) “[w]hether a district court stipulation that is ineffective to mitigate extensive duplication of effort between tribunals should weigh for or against discretionary denial,” and (3) “[w]hether a trial date set one month before the projected statutory deadline for a final written decision weighs in favor of discretionary denial or is neutral.”]
• Roku Inc. v. Universal Elecs. Inc., IPR2021-00263, -00264, -00299 [Notification of Receipt of POP Request issued August 12, 2021] [Petitioner requests review to determine “whether the NHK-Fintiv rule that the Panel applied [in the subject proceedings] to exercise its discretion and deny the instant Petition in view of a parallel ITC investigation (1) is inconsistent with § 314(a) of the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA); (2) violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because the NHK-Fintiv rule was promulgated without “notice and comment rulemaking” under § 553(b), and thus “without observance of procedure required by law,” § 706 2(D), or (3) violates § 706(2)(A) of the APA because the Panel Decision applied the NHK-Fintiv rule in an arbitrary and capricious manner.”]