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Some info concerning patent re-examination request like the one that is being done against the Eolas patent (Microsoft lost in court to Eolas for allowing IE to use hahahahahaed programs like Flash). The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has petitioned the USPTO and the USPTO has accepted the request.
Usually takes 3-6 months after filing to be addressed. Due to public outcry, the request took 1 week and the USPTO Director personally approved the re-exam request!
Information gathered from talking to several patent attorneys on re-exams:
The patent examiner will spend about 15 hours total on the re-exam..which is alot more time than is spent on the actual patent(!!!) before coming to a preliminary decision, before then talking to the patent holder.
A person or company pays the filing fee (about $1,300) and then needs to have a patent attorney craft explanations of prior art to invalidate the patent claims. The estimate cost is about $30k-$50K for the whole process in attorney time, not to mention money spent to find prior art.
A completed document is filed to the USPTO...and then the examiner reviews the information and discusses with the patent holder. The review is one-sided..only the patent holder is allowed to discuss the prior art points with the examiner.
The process could take 6-8 months (or longer) before a final decision is made.
If the prior art is solid and the patent holder cannot explain away the evidence, then the patent is revoked and invalidated.
It is better to argue in court with a judge, then to take your chances with submitting a document to the USPTO. Atleast with a judge, you can argue your points....with the re-exam, there is not discussion.
The downside is that the patent holder can continue to gain new licensees of their patent, until the final outcome has been determined.
Fight the Delays!
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