Law360, New York ( December 16, 2015, 10:27 AM EST) -- This year has brought the first wave of Federal Circuit decisions in appeals from final written decisions in inter partes review and covered business method proceedings. The overarching trend has been deference. In its first 55 post-grant appeals, the Federal Circuit has affirmed or dismissed 89 percent of them, with most being summary affirmances without opinion. These statistics are largely expected since the Federal Circuit's affirmance rate for patent office appeals has been about 90 percent for the past few years. Post-grant proceedings have proven no different. But there are a few areas, most involving fundamental legal issues, in which the Federal Circuit has addressed interesting new issues that will impact post-grant cases for many years to come....