A Post-Grant Review (PGR) petition is one of the least forgiving documents in patent practice. It’s filed once, it locks in the grounds and evidence the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) will consider at institution and formal defects – not just substantive weaknesses – can get a petition rejected, expunged, or stripped of key arguments before the Board ever reaches the merits. Proofreading a PGR petition is therefore not a final spell-check pass; it’s a compliance review against a specific set of PTAB rules, layered on top of ordinary legal and technical accuracy checks.
This guide sets out the document standards that matter most, organized the way a thorough pre-filing review should actually run.
1. Formal Requirements Under 37 CFR § 42.6
Every paper filed in a PTAB trial proceeding – including a PGR petition – must comply with baseline formatting rules:
- Font and spacing. 14-point Times New Roman proportional font with normal spacing is required for documents created for the proceeding. Double spacing is mandatory except in claim charts, headings, tables of contents, tables of authorities, indices, signature blocks and certificates of service. Block quotations may be 1.5-spaced but must be indented from both margins.
- Margins. At least 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) on all sides. Margin violations have historically drawn formal notices from the Board even when substance was otherwise sound.
- Page size. 8½ × 11 inch paper, except exhibits that require a larger size to preserve the details of the original document.
- Markings. Black or equivalently dark, high-contrast markings throughout.
- No incorporation by reference. Arguments cannot be incorporated by reference from one paper into another and combined motions, oppositions, or replies are not permitted – each paper must stand on its own.
A proofreading pass should confirm every one of these mechanically, not just visually – font substitutions during drafting (a pasted claim chart in a different font, a table imported from Excel) are a common, easy-to-miss defect.
2. Word-Count Compliance Under 37 CFR § 42.24
PGR petitions are governed by a word limit, not a page limit: 18,700 words, per 37 CFR § 42.24(a)(1)(ii). This is the same limit that applies to covered business method (CBM) petitions and is materially higher than the 14,000-word limit for inter partes review (IPR) petitions – a distinction worth double-checking if a template is being reused across proceeding types.
What counts toward the limit and what doesn’t:
- Excluded from the word count: table of contents, table of authorities, mandatory notices under 37 CFR § 42.8, certificate of service or word count and the appendix of exhibits or claim listing.
- Included in the word count: the substantive petition body, including any statement of material facts offered in support.
A compliant petition must include a certification of the word count. Proofreading should verify that:
- The word-count certification was generated after the final substantive edit, not from an earlier draft – a stale certification is a common last-minute error.
- The counting tool used actually excludes the categories the rule excludes; word processors count differently depending on how footnotes, headers and tables are configured and a naive “Word Count” tool reading may not match what the rule requires.
- If the petition is close to the limit, there’s a documented buffer – Board practice does not treat a petition that is technically over the limit charitably and there is no independent right to file an over-length petition without an accompanying motion to waive the word count showing why a waiver serves the interests of justice.
3. Substantive Content Requirements Specific to PGR
Beyond formatting, 37 CFR § 42.204 sets out content the petition must affirmatively include and a proofreading pass should trace each requirement to a specific location in the document:
- Grounds for standing – a certification that the challenged patent is available for PGR (generally, that the petition is filed within nine months of grant or reissue, or before the close of that window as extended by a preceding PGR) and that the petitioner is not barred or estopped from requesting review.
- Identification of the challenge – for each challenged claim, a precise statement of relief requested identifying the claim, the specific statutory ground(s) under 35 U.S.C. § 282(b)(2) or (3) relied upon and how the claim is unpatentable under each ground.
- Claim construction – where the petition’s argument depends on a particular reading of claim terms, that construction needs to be stated explicitly rather than left implicit in the analysis, since the Board applies claim constructions to evaluate whether the petition makes out a case for review.
- Supporting evidence citations – each factual assertion supporting an unpatentability ground should be tied to a specific exhibit and page/line or paragraph, not a general reference to a declaration or reference as a whole.
A useful proofreading technique is a traceability check: build a table mapping every claim element and every asserted ground to the specific exhibit citation supporting it and confirm the exhibit actually says what the petition claims it says. Gaps here are a leading cause of institution denials that have nothing to do with the underlying merits of the invalidity theory.
4. Exhibit and Evidence Presentation Standards
PGR petitions typically depend heavily on supporting evidence – prior art references, expert declarations and technical documents – and the Board’s exhibit-numbering and labeling conventions are strictly enforced:
- Exhibits must be sequentially numbered and consistently labeled (e.g., Ex. 1001, Ex. 1002…) across the petition, exhibit list and all supporting declarations.
- Every exhibit cited in the petition body must actually appear in the filed exhibit list and vice versa – orphaned citations (referenced in text but missing from the list) or orphaned exhibits (listed but never cited) both signal a document that wasn’t fully reconciled before filing.
- Expert declarations should be cross-checked against the petition narrative for consistency – a declaration that states a slightly different opinion, date, or characterization than what the petition asserts creates an internal inconsistency the patent owner’s response will exploit.
- Where foreign-language references are relied upon, certified translations must be included and properly cited, not just summarized in the petition text.
5. Mandatory Notices and Procedural Housekeeping
Under 37 CFR § 42.8, every petition must include mandatory notices identifying real parties in interest, related matters (including related litigation and other PTAB proceedings involving the same patent) and lead/backup counsel. Proofreading should confirm:
- Real-party-in-interest disclosures are current as of the filing date, not an earlier drafting date – corporate structures and litigation funding arrangements can change during the drafting period.
- Related-matter disclosures capture any newly filed litigation or newly filed PTAB proceedings that may have been docketed after an early draft of the notices section was written.
- Counsel information (registration numbers, contact details) is accurate and matches what’s on file with the USPTO.
- Service was properly completed on the patent owner and is documented in a certificate of service that matches the actual filing date.
Key Takeaway
Because a PGR petition largely locks in the case a petitioner gets to make, proofreading it is a compliance exercise as much as a language-quality one. The formatting and word-count rules are mechanical and unforgiving, the content requirements under 37 CFR § 42.204 need to be affirmatively traceable rather than just implied by the narrative and the exhibit/citation architecture needs to hold together under scrutiny before the Board – or the patent owner – finds the gap first.