Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2018)

By Kevin E. Noonan — Although having built up a track record for several years and several thousand petitions and "trials," inter partes review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act are still relatively new. As a statute administered by an administrative agency having the power (and duty) to promulgate rules effecting implementation of that statute, IPRs, like many administrative proceedings, have in due course generated controversies on how the statute has been implemented. A fair number of these controversies have been reviewed by the Federal Circuit (see "Redline Detection, LLC v. Star Envirotech, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2015)"; "Aqua Products,…Original Article