PTAB (IPR)

I'll research this. Note at the outset: the "court" here is not an Article III district court, which changes several of the requested categories — I'll verify and flag that.

Let me verify the tracked case specifics and current institution/statistics data.

Note on scope: PTAB is not an Article III district court, so several categories in the standard template (circuit, jury trials, transfer motions, local patent rules) don't map cleanly. I've substituted the closest functional equivalents and flagged where no comparable data exists.

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Court overview. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is an administrative tribunal within the USPTO, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with panels sitting there and by video/telephone. It is not assigned to a judicial circuit; its decisions are appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A). Its AIA trial docket is national, not geographic: per USPTO's FY2025 figures, the Board received 1,437 AIA petitions (IPR/PGR) and 3,952 ex parte appeals, and issued 937 AIA institution decisions and 387 AIA final written decisions, with roughly 262 members (USPTO PTAB presentation, June 2026). That petition volume is a fraction of the ~4,000+ patent suits filed annually across all federal districts, but because a single petition can reach any patent the Board functions as a single nationwide validity forum — there is no equivalent in the district-court system.

Docket reputation. The "rocket docket" characterization genuinely applies, but by statute rather than by local practice: 35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11) requires a final written decision within 12 months of institution, extendable to 18 months for good cause. USPTO reported average pendency of ~2.7 months to institution and ~11.7 months institution-to-final-decision in FY2024; academic analysis using Lex Machina data found institution roughly 194 days after filing and final decision roughly 556 days after filing (2019–2023), versus a ~729-day median to termination in district court validity cases. The forum is not "plaintiff-friendly" in the venue sense — it is a revocation forum, and historically a hostile one for patent owners. USPTO's 2024 PPAC report states that among instituted cases reaching final written decision, 78% of claims were held unpatentable, only 16% of patents emerged entirely intact, and a challenged claim faced roughly a 48% chance of cancellation. Institution rates have collapsed since 2025: roughly 67% in 2024, 44% in 2025, and 21% in 2026 to date (Steptoe summary of PTAB Masters 2026); RPX reports 12% under Director Squires' fully director-led process in Q4 2025, rebounding to 26% in Q1 2026 and 38% in Q2 2026. Sources use different denominators — treat these as directional, not precise.

Procedures. There are no local patent rules; practice is governed by 37 C.F.R. Part 42, the Consolidated Trial Practice Guide (Nov. 2019), and the Board's Standard Operating Procedures. The functional analogue to a district-court transfer motion is discretionary denial: § 314(a) Fintiv/NHK-Fintiv factors (parallel litigation, trial date, investment in the parallel case, stipulation, overlapping claims/parties) and § 325(d) (same art or arguments previously presented to the Office). Claim construction follows Phillips. All decisions are rendered by three-APJ panels on the written record — no juries, no bench trials, no live trial testimony (depositions only), and motions to amend under § 316(d) remain relatively uncommon. Practice is in flux: an interim process in March 2025 returned discretionary determinations to the Director; effective October 20, 2025, Director Squires took over all institution decisions including merits; proposed amendments to 37 C.F.R. § 42.108 (comments closed Dec. 2, 2025) would impose categorical bars in cases with prior validity findings or likely earlier parallel trials. Director Review (United States v. Arthrex) remains available, and the Director has designated precedential/informative decisions including Magnolia Medical Technologies v. Kurin (IPR2026-00097, May 14, 2026) on public-interest discretionary factors. Note that these institution-stage developments are reported largely through law-firm and RPX analyses rather than consolidated official statistics.

Notable tracked case. The one tracked matter is Siemens Mobility, Inc. et al. v. Metrom Rail, LLC, dated Jan. 9, 2023 with institution denied. It is really a multi-petition family: Siemens, Ground Transportation Systems USA, Humatics, and Piper Networks filed IPR2023-00439, -00452, -00460, -00468, and -00470 in January 2023 against several Metrom rail-collision-avoidance patents, plus IPR2024-00947 on the '738 patent. Institution was denied in at least IPR2023-00452 (July 14, 2023) and, under § 325(d), in IPR2024-00947 (Nov. 19, 2024; panel of APJs Powell, White, and Dougal) — the latter went to a Delegated Rehearing Panel, which left the denial in place in April 2025 while clarifying that a reference appearing only in an examiner's search report is not "previously presented art." Where instituted, the results were mixed: in IPR2023-00470 all claims of the '227 patent were held unpatentable, and in IPR2023-00468 claims 1–16 of the '131 patent were unpatentable while claims 17–20 survived. On appeal (Nos. 2024-2223, 2024-2264), the Federal Circuit issued a nonprecedential May 11, 2026 decision affirming on the '227 patent and '131 claims 1–16 (rejecting Metrom's secondary-considerations/nexus arguments) and reversing as to claims 17–20 on construction of "data representing the separation distance"; Metrom filed a combined panel and en banc rehearing petition in June 2026. The tracked "institution denied" entry most closely corresponds to the January 2023 petition family; I could not confirm from public sources which specific proceeding the tracker keys on.

Judges. PTAB judges are administrative patent judges, not Article III judges, and panels are assigned by the Board rather than chosen by parties — so there is no per-judge public docket data comparable to Lex Machina's district-judge reporting, and characterizing individual APJs as plaintiff- or defendant-friendly would not be supportable. Kalyan K. Deshpande has been Chief Judge since January 2026 (previously Acting Chief from August 2025); his predecessor was Scott Boalick. Prominent judges in the tracked matter include Neil T. Powell, Stacey G. White, Brent M. Dougal, and Iftikhar Ahmed. Deputy Chief Judge Michelle N. Ankenbrand and Vice Chief Judge Michael W. Kim are listed in current Board leadership materials. APJ headcount fell below 200 in 2025 after buyouts and retirements, down from roughly 230 before January 2025 (Chief Judge Boalick, PTO webinar, May 2025) — a staffing fact worth tracking given the Board's rising appeal inventory.