PTAB challenges

Proceedings overview

There is one AIA trial proceeding on file for US patent 11698377. This proceeding resulted in an institution denied status, meaning no claims were challenged to trial. This outcome gives a defendant a hardened patent in that a first attempt to challenge its claims via IPR was unsuccessful.

IPR2026-00167 — Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. et al. v. Genzyme Corp

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2025-12-02
• Status: Institution Denied – The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) declined to institute a trial.
• Judge panel: Not publicly available at the time of the institution decision.
• Petition grounds: The petition challenged claims 1-20 of US11698377B2. The grounds were based on obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103, citing various combinations of prior art, including US20140335054 (Cheng et al.), WO2013096277A1 (Srivastava et al.), and WO2015017252A1 (Wilson et al.).
• Institution decision: Denied on 2026-05-15. The panel's reasoning for denying institution was that the petition failed to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that at least one of the challenged claims was unpatentable. Specifically, the Board found that Sarepta Therapeutics did not adequately establish a motivation to combine the cited prior art references or a reasonable expectation of success for the proposed obviousness combinations.
• Final Written Decision: Not applicable as institution was denied.
• Settlement / termination: Not applicable as institution was denied.
• Appeal: No appeal was filed, as there was no Final Written Decision.
• Defensive value: The patent owner successfully defended against this IPR petition, meaning all claims (1-20) remain intact. Any future IPR-based defense will need to address the PTAB's reasoning for denying institution and present new and compelling arguments regarding the obviousness of the claims.

Strategic summary

All 20 claims of US11698377 remain unchallenged at the PTAB, as the sole IPR petition, IPR2026-00167, was denied institution. This means that all claims (1-20) are currently SUSTAINED (in the sense that they were not invalidated) and UNTESTED at trial. The patent has not been narrowed through IPR.

Regarding the estoppel landscape, since institution was denied, the petitioner, Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. et al., and their privies are not estopped under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) from raising any ground that was raised or reasonably could have been raised in the IPR. This is because estoppel only applies when a final written decision is issued. Therefore, the prior-art grounds previously presented are theoretically still available for potential litigation, though the PTAB's reasoning for denying institution would need to be carefully considered by any future challenger.

Currently, there is no pattern of multiple IPRs from the same petitioner or aggressive PTAB appeals by the patent owner, as only one proceeding has been filed, and it did not proceed to trial. The involvement of Sarepta Therapeutics, a major player in gene therapy, indicates that the patent is considered relevant in the field.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing assertion of US11698377, the denial of institution for IPR2026-00167 is a significant factor. You should:

• Carefully review the institution decision for IPR2026-00167, available at the USPTO PTAB Decisions portal, to understand the specific weaknesses identified by the Board in Sarepta's obviousness arguments. Any new IPR petition or invalidity defense in district court would need to overcome these deficiencies.
• Consider whether there is new prior art or alternative obviousness/anticipation arguments that were not raised or could not have been reasonably raised in IPR2026-00167, particularly those that address the PTAB's reasoning for denial.
• Given the patent's active status and its involvement in a denied IPR, the patent owner may view this as a stronger patent. Prepare for a robust defense of any asserted claims, potentially leveraging the detailed arguments from the denied IPR petition if they can be refined or supplemented.
• No other PTAB activity is currently pending for this patent. This absence means there are no upcoming trial-stage milestones to monitor.

https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2026-00167