Which regime your family is in decides which proceedings can reach it

How to read the ledger below. Each numbered point carries the kind of evidence behind it. ESTABLISHED is stated in the authority's own text, with a locator. IMPLEMENTED is the rule as the authority actually applied it. OBSERVED is carried by a source outside this one. ASSUMED is the drafter's inference, flagged as such and not the authority speaking. Quotations are checked against a cached copy of the primary source by script.

In one paragraph

The Federal Circuit reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in SNIPR v. Rockefeller on 14 July 2023 and held that patents whose effective filing dates all fall after 16 March 2013 are governed exclusively by the first-inventor-to-file regime and cannot be made part of an interference, so the phrase any unexpired patents in the old statute does not reach them. The Board had cancelled those claims in an interference declared against an older family, and that cancellation was undone.

Reader summary

Interferences are the old first-to-invent world's priority contest, asking who invented first. The America Invents Act replaced that system with first-inventor-to-file and, by its effective date provision, confined the old machinery to patents that still belong to the old regime.

Rockefeller's patents were pre-AIA. SNIPR's were not: every one of their effective filing dates fell after March 16, 2013, so they had been examined and issued under the AIA. The Board nonetheless declared an interference between them and cancelled SNIPR's claims for lack of priority, reading pre-AIA section 135's reference to "any unexpired patents" as reaching every patent whatever its regime.

The Federal Circuit reversed. Reading the AIA's effective-date provision together with the statute's purpose and history, it held that pure-AIA patents may not be part of an interference at all, and that "any unexpired patents" in the old provision does not include them. A patent examined under one regime is not exposed to the other regime's proceedings merely because an adversary's patents are older.

For continuation practice the useful point is upstream of the holding. Which regime a patent falls into is set by its effective filing dates, and a continuation's effective filing date is exactly what the rest of this tier is about. A priority claim that reaches back across March 16, 2013 does not only change what counts as prior art; it can change which tribunal proceedings are available against the patent at all.

Why this matters when you are drafting

The 2013 boundary decides more than prior art. Most discussion of March 16, 2013 concerns which section 102 applies. Claims 1 and 4 add a second consequence: which proceedings the patent can be subjected to. That is a materially different kind of exposure and it is decided by the same dates.

A priority claim that reaches back is not free. If a continuation successfully claims benefit of a pre-2013 application, it is no longer a pure-AIA patent, and by this decision's logic the pre-AIA machinery becomes available against it. If the priority claim fails, as it failed in penumbra-v-rapidpulse and nearly failed in purdue-v-collegium, the patent moves the other way. Reaching back is a regime decision, not only a date decision.

Read this with the other two Tier C records in one sitting. penumbra-v-rapidpulse and in-re-riggs tell you which test dates a reference once you know the regime. This one tells you the regime is itself contingent on the dates. Doing these in the wrong order produces a confident answer under the wrong statute.

Mixed families are the hazard. This case had pre-AIA patents on one side and pure-AIA on the other, which is the clean case. A single family whose members straddle the boundary is the harder one, and this opinion resolves it only to the extent that classification is per-patent and date-driven (claim 7).

What the authority establishes

1. [ESTABLISHED, the holding] "we conclude that pure AIA patents may not be part of an interference", reached "Based on the plain language of AIA § 3(n) and the statutory purpose and history of the AIA". (P. 11.)

1. [ESTABLISHED, the statutory reading that gets there] "we conclude that 'any unexpired patents' in pre-AIA § 135 does not include pure AIA patents". (P. 17.)

1. [ESTABLISHED, the question the court set itself] "The issue before us is whether pure AIA patents may be part of an interference". (P. 10.)

1. [ESTABLISHED, and this is the sentence that matters for continuation practice] What made these patents pure-AIA was their dates: "Because their effective filing dates are after March 16, 2013, the SNIPR Patents are pure AIA patents" that were examined and issued under the first-inventor-to-file requirements. (P. 8.)

1. [ESTABLISHED, what Congress did] As part of the new system "Congress eliminated from the Patent Act 'interferences,'" which the opinion describes as administrative priority contests. (P. 2.)

1. [ESTABLISHED, the effective-date provision does the work] The AIA's effective date provision makes clear that "interferences and other first-to-invent aspects of pre-AIA law do not apply to patents exclusively governed by the AIA" and issued under the new regime. (P. 2.)

1. [IMPLEMENTED, the category is per-patent and turns on dates, not on the adversary] The court classifies each side's patents by their own effective filing dates and lets that classification decide what proceeding is available. Rockefeller's older patents did not pull SNIPR's into the old regime.

1. [ASSUMED, drafter's inference, flagged as such] Because a continuation's effective filing date is the thing this tier's other records fight over, a successful or failed priority claim can move a patent across the regime boundary and change which proceedings reach it. The opinion does not discuss continuations or priority chains; this is the drafter's reading of claim 4 read against the rest of Tier C.

Quotations, verified against the source

All from the Federal Circuit's opinion. Page locators computed from the docket stamp.

• "Congress eliminated from the Patent Act 'interferences,'" (P. 2.)
• "interferences and other first-to-invent aspects of pre-AIA law do not apply to patents exclusively governed by the AIA" (P. 2.)
• "Because their effective filing dates are after March 16, 2013, the SNIPR Patents are pure AIA patents" (P. 8.)
• "The issue before us is whether pure AIA patents may be part of an interference" (P. 10.)
• "we conclude that pure AIA patents may not be part of an interference" (P. 11.)
• "we conclude that 'any unexpired patents' in pre-AIA § 135 does not include pure AIA patents" (P. 17.)

Tensions and open questions

The single-family straddle is not decided. Both sides here were internally consistent. A family with some members claiming pre-2013 priority and others not is the configuration a continuation practice actually produces, and this opinion addresses it only by implication.

What happens to a patent whose priority claim is later invalidated is unaddressed. If a patent was treated as pre-AIA because of a priority claim that a tribunal later rejects, its regime arguably changes after the fact. Nothing here says whether that is so or what it would mean for a proceeding already concluded.

The holding is about interferences specifically. Claim 6 quotes broader language about first-to-invent aspects of pre-AIA law, but the disposition addresses interferences. How far the reasoning travels to other pre-AIA machinery is not resolved by the passages read.

What this record does and does not cover

The Discussion was read end to end, including the statutory analysis that produces claims 1 and 2.

What was NOT read closely, and is therefore outside what this record can support: the legislative-history detail, the canons of construction the court invokes, and the technical subject matter. This record says nothing about the merits of either side's priority position, which the reversal made unnecessary to reach. The Board decision is known here only through the court's characterization.

Currency

This record was verified against its primary source on 2026-08-15. That is a fidelity check: the quotations, locators and attribution are accurate to that source. Whether the authority has since been narrowed, distinguished, abrogated or reversed has not been checked here. Confirm it still stands before relying on it.