Law360, New York (October 13, 2015, 10:48 AM EDT) -- Inter partes reviews are now widely used by companies being sued or threatened with suit for patent infringement. The odds of invalidating patent claims in an IPR proceeding are much higher than in district court litigation, and IPRs are normally faster and less expensive. But not every company wants to pay for an IPR, or even be identified as the IPR petitioner, if they are not currently being sued, even if a customer of theirs is being sued. Nor are customers or other threatened companies always aware of patent or publication prior art good enough to invalidate all the patent claims of concern. A company may have knowledge of far better prior art than its customers being sued, or other defendants being sued, on that same patent, yet may not itself wish to file or join in an IPR, or even be identified. That could be for various reasons, such as a concern for cost, estoppels, business or legal retaliation, third-party discovery demands, lack of IPR expertise, etc. Yet the company employees may be aware of prior art that could be highly relevant to the potential invalidity of the asserted patent claims. The company might directly or indirectly benefit from someone else using that prior art to invalidate the patent claims. In particular, prior art that would not be easily uncovered in a normal prior art search by others. For example, "published" service manuals, operator instruction manuals, trade show or technology seminar materials, university theses, etc. The case law definition of a prior art "publication" in patent law is quite broad, and the America Invents Act § 102 adds "or otherwise available to the public."...