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PTAB proceedings

Access previous IPR proceedings for US patents.

Written by Caleb Harris

The PTAB view helps you understand whether the target patent has been challenged before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and, in project context, whether related family-member proceedings also matter to your analysis. Instead of checking a separate PTAB portal for each patent, &AI brings the proceeding list, status information, and associated documents into the same project workflow as your patent analysis.

PTAB data is available on all plans, and processing PTAB materials costs tokens to run.

Use this workflow when you need to:

  • confirm whether the target patent or a related family patent was challenged in IPR, PGR, or related PTAB proceedings

  • review the status and major dates of each proceeding

  • inspect the PTAB record for a specific matter

  • process selected PTAB documents for downstream analysis

  • mark one proceeding as the key proceeding for the project

Open the PTAB view

From the target patent, choose PTAB in the patent-analysis navigation. The PTAB workflow starts in a proceedings table and then drills into an individual proceeding when you select a row. In project context, you may also reach a PTAB matter from litigation activity when a family-member proceeding is relevant.

If the patent has PTAB history, the table becomes your main intake surface. If you need the latest information, the page also includes a Reprocess action. That action may be subject to a cooldown, and the page explains when you need to wait before running it again.

Review the proceedings table first

The main PTAB table is designed for triage. In the current UI, it supports:

  • a search field for proceeding number, petitioner, patent owner, or inventor terms

  • a Filters menu for status and petitioner

  • sortable columns for proceeding number, status, filing date, decision date, petitioner, and last updated

  • visible judge information in the table

  • a key-proceeding star column when the page is opened inside a project

That table is the fastest place to answer questions such as:

  • How many PTAB matters affect this patent?

  • Which proceeding is most important right now?

  • Has there already been an institution or final decision?

  • Which petitioner is associated with the challenge I care about?

Mark a key proceeding when one challenge matters most

When the page is in project context, the proceedings table includes a star control for setting or unsetting the key proceeding. The table tooltip explains that the key proceeding displays on the project dashboard, so this is the right step when the project is centered on one specific PTAB matter and you want that matter surfaced more prominently elsewhere.

Use the key-proceeding action when:

  • there are multiple PTAB proceedings but only one should anchor the project

  • the team needs a shared default proceeding for later drafting or review

  • you want important PTAB context to show up in project-level surfaces

Open a proceeding to inspect the record

Click a proceeding row to open its detail page. The current proceeding view shows the information users typically need first:

  • the proceeding number

  • the status badge

  • institution decision date

  • final decision date when the proceeding status supports it

  • petitioner and patent-owner information

This makes the detail page a good checkpoint before you start opening individual documents. You can confirm you are in the right record, see which challenged patent the matter is tied to, and understand the basic posture of the proceeding before doing document-level review.

Use the document list to narrow the record

If the selected proceeding has documents, the detail page adds a document table with:

  • a search field

  • a Filters menu for category and filing party

  • sortable columns for document, category, filing party, and filing date

  • row click behavior that opens the document PDF

  • checkbox selection for documents that still need processing

This gives you a practical way to focus on the petitions, decisions, orders, or other materials that matter for your analysis rather than treating every PTAB filing the same way.

Process selected PTAB documents

When the documents table includes unprocessed items, you can select them and run the bulk Process action from the header area. A simple workflow is:

  1. Open the proceeding that matters.

  2. Filter the record to the categories or filing parties you care about.

  3. Select the PTAB documents that still need processing.

  4. Start processing so those materials can be used more effectively elsewhere in the project.

This is the part of the workflow where token usage is most likely to matter. The page also shows processing states so you can distinguish documents that are already finished from documents that are still pending.

Common review pattern

A reliable way to use the PTAB workflow is:

  1. Scan the proceedings table to understand the set of challenges.

  2. Mark the most important matter as the key proceeding if the project needs one.

  3. Open the relevant proceeding and confirm its status, dates, and parties.

  4. Filter the proceeding documents and process the ones you will rely on next.

That pattern keeps the work focused and avoids getting lost in PTAB materials before you know which proceeding actually matters.

After PTAB review

From here, return to claims, charting, or drafting with the relevant PTAB materials processed, or compare PTAB arguments against prosecution history to see how positions shifted.

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