On February 2, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) hosted one of a series of Boardside Chats by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to discuss, among other topics, ex parte appeal pendency. While the current PTAB statistics dashboard (reproduced below) indicates that the majority of current ex parte appeals remain pending for more than 14 months, the Board has reduced its ex parte appeal inventory by over 4% in the past three months.
