Rachel Elsby Quoted by Law360 on Federal Circuit Hearing of AIA Review
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Akin Gump intellectual property counsel Rachel Elsby was quoted in the Law360 article “Fed Circ. Could Make Claim Amendment In AIA Reviews Easier,” regarding a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit involving a pool cleaner patent held by Aqua Products Inc.
The article reports that Aqua Products is challenging a rule by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that patent owners in America Invents Act reviews have the burden of proving that their proposed amended claims are patentable. The company, as the article notes, argues it should be up to the party that challenged the patent to prove that the new claims are not patentable.
Discussing what would happen if the court were to side the Aqua Products, Elsby said, “I would think that a shift in the burden would be a signal from the Federal Circuit to the board that they’ve been too restrictive in [amendment] petitions. The logical extension of that would be that it will be easier to get amendments in.”
