Law360, New York ( July 15, 2015, 10:17 AM EDT) -- Patent owners need to consider ways to mitigate the damage done to a patent that suffers the cloud of invalidity despite surviving an inter partes review or re-examination attack at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent office rules for inter partes review, inter partes re-examination and ex parte re-examination prohibit the Patent Trial and Appeal Board from invalidating patents for failing to satisfy the requirements of 35 U.S.C. §§ 101 and 112. While handcuffed by these rules, PTAB decisions have terminated these proceedings based on § 112 defects in the claims, without legally invalidating the patents....