TL;DR
- Deadline alert: Inter Partes Review (IPR) petitions filed on or after Sept 1, 2025 must pin-cite every single claim element to a prior-art patent or printed publication—no more plug-and-play with Applicant Admitted Prior Art (AAPA), expert testimony, or general knowledge.
- Bigger evidence load: With AAPA off-limits for elements, petitioners will lean harder on non-patent literature (NPL)—web manuals, standards, GitHub docs—raising the stakes on public-accessibility and authenticity fights.
- Good news: Page Vault already delivers authenticated, paginated, exhibit-ready captures with URL, timestamp, SHA-256 hash, and optional affidavits—exactly what the new rule demands.
What’s Changed at the UPTO—and Why It Matters
On July 31, 2025, the USPTO issued a three-page memo instructing the PTAB to stop waiving and start enforcing Rule 42.104(b)(4). For petitions filed after September 1, every claim limitation must be mapped to a pinpoint location in a printed publication or patent. Anything else—including AAPA—can no longer supply a missing element (though it can still explain motivation to combine). The Office says the bright-line approach aligns PTAB practice with the Federal Circuit’s recent Shockwave decision and will cut down on remands.
Why this matters for your next petition
The revised framework effectively builds a detailed claim chart requirement into every petition. Failure to map even a single claim limitation to a patent or printed publication may result in denial at the institution stage. With AAPA and expert testimony no longer available to supply missing elements, petitioners will increasingly rely on non-patent literature to bridge gaps. These references, however, are more likely to face scrutiny on issues of public accessibility and authenticity, making provenance, timestamps, and reliable pagination critical to withstand challenge.
Page Vault: built for the post-Sept 1 landscape
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New PTAB reality
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How Page Vault solves it
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Pin-cite every element
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Our captures are searchable, paginated PDFs (yes, even Wayback pages and downloaded PDFs), so dropping line-by-line citations into a claim chart takes minutes, not hours.
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Prove authenticity & public access
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Each file ships with a URL, timestamp, and SHA-256 hash, plus a one-click affidavit option—exactly the metadata PTAB panels expect.
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Stay out of the chain of custody
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Page Vault’s patented remote-browsing architecture keeps your team removed from the digital chain of custody, locking down integrity from capture to courtroom.
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Capture more NPL, faster
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Manuals, standards, READMEs, conference PDFs—capture the entire publication with a single click, ready to attach as an exhibit.
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Pre-petition checklist
- Every limitation → a document. If an element isn’t in a patent or publication, find one that is—no exceptions.
- Capture completely. Use Page Vault to grab the full web page or full PDF, not snippets. Stable pagination = easy pin-cites.
- Lock the provenance. Keep the metadata cover page; add an affidavit when the reference is mission-critical.
- Double-up with Wayback. For older references, capture the Internet Archive version as belt-and-suspenders proof of public availability.
September 1 is closer than it looks. A fifteen-minute Page Vault demo today can save you a petition denial later. We’ll show you an element-by-element build and how to streamline your evidence collection.
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