This means that a single party (ex parte means from one party) can request the USPTO to review a patent to determine whether it was issued in error. Such a procedure would not involve the entity holding the patent.
The USPTO has specific criteria for determining when an ex parte review can be permitted, hinging on "a substantial new question of patentability".
This process could occasionally be an option for SDOs (standards development organizations) that are not directly involved in a patent infringement lawsuit involving the use of their standard. If the SDO wishes to defend the free use of their standard in cases for which an encumbering patent seems trivial or non-original, this might be something to consider.
This post (and any post on this blog site that touches on a legal subject) is not legal advice. This is just a discussion of a published USPTO document.
-Jules Berman
My book, Principles of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information was published in 2013 by Morgan Kaufmann.
I urge you to explore my book. Google books has prepared a generous preview of the book contents.
tags: big data, metadata, data preparation, data analytics, data repurposing, datamining, data mining, patent infringement, sdo, specifications, standards, uspto
