The Use of Applicant Admitted Prior Art in IPR Petitions

• Liv Herriot
• 8.7.2017

In this article published by Bloomberg BNA's Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal, Don Steinberg, Yung-Hoon Ha and Liv Herriot explore how the Patent Trial and Appeals Board has considered Applicant Admitted Prior Art (AAPA) when a petitioner has relied upon it as part of one or more of its grounds in its IPR petition requesting the Board invalidate a patent. The authors provide recommendations for both petitioners and patent owners based on how the Board has decided on this issue.

Admissions made by the patentee, either in the patent specification or during the course of prosecution, identifying a particular work as ''prior art'' can be relied upon for both anticipation and obviousness determinations. Read the full article