By James Barney ( November 30, 2017, 1:07 PM EST) -- Congress created the quasi-judicial, fast-track inter partes review procedure to allow parties to challenge patent validity in a streamlined fashion. The stated goal was to provide "quick and cost effective alternatives to litigation."[1] But from its inception, the IPR procedure has been on a collision course with another quasi-judicial, fast-track procedure created by Congress — namely, Section 337 investigations. As expected, a head-on collision finally occurred in July 2017, between a U.S. International Trade Commission investigation brought by Cisco against Arista Networks Inc. (Inv. No. 337-TA-945) and two concurrent IPRs in which Arista challenged the validity of Cisco Systems Inc.'s patents.[2]...