On June 5, 2013, in a case of first impression under the America Invents Act, the USPTO Patent and Trial Appeals Board (PTAB) issued an order in US Bancorp v. Retirement Capital Access Management Company, LLC, denying Bancorp's request for authorization to file a motion to join additional parties as petitioners and parties in interest to an existing patent post-grant review proceeding. In so ruling, the USPTO deemed decisive the fact that at the time of the motion the proposed additional parties had not themselves filed petitions for post-grant review. Relying on the plain language of Section 325(c) of the Patent Act, the statute governing joinder in post-grant review proceedings, the PTAB reasoned that, in this statute and its implementing regulation, Congress both:

The PTAB therefore held that there was no mechanism for Bancorp to join parties to its already-filed petition for post-grant review without these parties' filing additional post-grant petitions.