After filing a first post-grant proceeding, whether an inter partes review, a covered business method proceeding or a post-grant review petition challenging certain claims of a patent, the same petitioner may decide to file a follow-on petition challenging the same claims of the same patent. The reasons for filing another petition may vary, for example: (1) the first petition was denied and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board panel identified certain deficiencies that the petitioner would like to correct in a second petition; (2) the petitioner would like to raise new grounds or new prior art that the petitioner did not raise in the first instance; or (3) the law changed since the petitioner filed its first petition. Under any of these circumstances, can a petitioner expect a PTAB panel to consider its second petition on the merits?

Originally published in Bloomberg BNA’s Patent, Trademark & Copyright Journal - December 18, 2015.