IPR Swap (coming soon)
What is IPR Swap?
IPR Swap is a mechanism powered by the Patdek platform to allow a person or company to publish and share a formal study explaining how a patent may have patentability questions. Once the study is published on IPR Swap, the author(s) of the study relinquish all control of the information in the study. Others may use, consider, and distribute the information in different ways. One potential use includes contacting the patent owner to explain why the patent may be of dubious quality. Another use could involve excerpting arguments or prior art from the patentability study. Still further uses include providing the information to the PTO by instituting a formal proceeding. Examples of formal PTO proceedings include the filing of an ex parte reexamination request, the filing of an inter partes review petition, or the filing of a covered business method challenge.
Why should a company consider using IPR Swap?
A patent is a public document that includes certain exclusive rights enjoyed by the patent owner. A patent is issued by the PTO after considering whether an invention, embodied in the claims of the patent, is patentable (what is a patent?). In some instances, after careful study and consideration, a company might reach a determination that certain claims of a patent are of questionable quality. Patdek, through the IPR Swap service, provides companies with the ability to share knowledge about why certain patent claims may not in fact be patentable. If you want to share objective information about why claims of a patent are not patentable, you can use IPR Swap to broadcast that information using the Patdek platform.
Is access to IPR Swap restricted?
Access to IPR Swap is restricted. You can use IPR Swap by submitting at least one patentability study, along with a fee for each patent study. The fee covers publication, indexing and maintenance of the patentability study for access by others.
What if I want to make a patentability study accessible to non-members?
By default, a patentability study is available only to Patdek subscribers. You have the option to publicly publish your study. You can do this by designating that the patentability study be publicly accessible via the Patdek platform, at the time of submission. Once submitted, whether for Patdek community or public consumption, the uploading entity loses all control of the uploaded/published information. If you realize a mistake is made after submission, you can upload additional information correcting the error.
What if I want to use someone else's patentability study to challenge a patent?
Any person with access to IPR Swap can use all or part of another patentability study to challenge a patent. The information in the patentability study can be used to challenge the patent addressed in the study. The patentability study may also be useful to challenge some other patent. It's up to you.
To the extent a formal proceeding is initiated with the PTO based on a patentability study, we encourage you to let us know. We will be tagging patentability studies and linking them to formal PTO proceedings. We also monitor formal proceedings at the PTO and report them using IPR Swap when relevant to a patentability study. Also, if a formal proceeding is initiated based on an IPR Swap patentability study, we will reflect that status in both the member's profile and the patentability study profile. If you don't want this type of status information to be shown in your IPR Swap profile, we will omit this information at your request.