42.220    Patent owner response.

  • (1) Scope. A patent owner may file a response to the petition addressing any ground for unpatentability not already denied. A patent owner response is filed as an opposition and is subject to the page limits provided in § 42.24.
  • (b) Due date for response. If no date for filing a patent owner response to a petition is provided in a Board order, the default date for filing a patent owner response is three months from the date the post-grant review is instituted.
[Applicability Note: Subpart C (Post-Grant Review) generally applies to patents issuing from applications subject to first-inventor-to-file provisions of the AIA. In addition, the Chief Administrative Patent Judge may, in the interests-of-justice, order an interference commenced before September 16, 2012 to be dismissed without prejudice to the filing of a petition for post-grant review. See § 42.200(d) and the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, Public Law 112-29, sec. 6(f)(3)(A).] [Added, 77 FR 48680, Aug. 14, 2012, effective Sept. 16, 2012]