On July 18, 2025, Scott R. Boalick, Chief Administrative Patent Judge for the Patent Trials and Appeals Board (“PTAB”), announced that, absent good cause, the PTAB will issue a Notice of Filing Date Accorded within 14 days from the inter partes review (“IPR”) or post-grant review (“PGR”) petition filing date.
Judge Boalick explained that this standardized timeframe for issuing these notices should “provide greater to the parties and the public regarding filing deadlines and expected decision timelines.” The Notice of Filing Date Accorded is an important factor in PTAB matters, as the patent owner has three months from the Notice of Filing Date Accorded, not the date the petition was filed, to file a preliminary response to the petition. Thus, this change ensures a shortened timeline (two weeks plus three months from the filing of the petition) for a patent holder to file its substantive preliminary response. It may also shorten the average timeline for the PTAB to reach institution decisions—a significant factor in motions to stay parallel district court litigation.
Until now, no guidance, regulation or statute set a deadline for the PTAB to issue such notices. Previously, the PTAB would occasionally delay issuing a Notice of Filing Date Accorded for several weeks, presumably to handle the burden of high filing volume on busy judges. In several recent cases, the filing notices had been issued over seven weeks after the petition had been filed.
This deadline may also benefit patent challengers seeking to overcome denial of institution based on the discretionary Fintiv factors. Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc., IPR2020-00019 (PTAB Mar. 20, 2020). The Fintiv factors consider proximity of the court’s trial date to the PTAB’s projected statutory deadline for a final written decision. Id. Setting all IPR deadlines more quickly improves the chances of institution for early filed IPR petitions and indirectly increases the likelihood that a defendant could attain a stay in parallel district court proceedings.
Finally, the memorandum states that good cause to delay issuance of the notice may include “Federal holidays, weather emergencies, or other circumstances that lead to an unusual filing volume on a given day.” It remains to be seen whether the PTAB will rely on the “unusual filing volume” provision to find good cause to delay issuance of a Notice of Filing Date Accorded where the 2 week requirement would overburden judges.
With the recent increase in Fintiv discretionary denials and a steady increase in processing time for Notice of Date Accorded, this memorandum bucks the trend—benefiting patent challengers engaged in parallel district court litigation.
Key Takeaway
Patent challengers can now have more clarity on the timing of PTAB proceedings, which should assist with balancing deadlines in parallel district court litigation. PTAB litigants may find a slight increase in the likelihood that early filed petitions will result in institution when competing parallel litigation exists .
