PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board)

The administrative tribunal within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that adjudicates patent validity challenges through inter partes review, post-grant review, and covered business method review proceedings. PTAB has reshaped the IP litigation finance market by providing defendants with a faster, cheaper path to invalidating asserted patents than district court litigation. A funded patent campaign that survives a PTAB challenge often commands higher settlement value because the defendant has exhausted or been denied the administrative invalidity route. Funders track PTAB institution rates, panel composition patterns, and art unit tendencies as part of their underwriting process.

Because PTAB outcomes vary by art unit and by the individual panel assigned, funders build internal views on which technology areas and administrative patent judges have historically favored patent owners versus petitioners, and price accordingly rather than treating PTAB risk as a uniform discount. A patent that has already survived one or more IPR petitions is underwritten materially differently than an unchallenged patent of similar claim scope, since surviving institution and merits review is the closest available proxy for durability against the primary invalidity threat funders face.