The USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) handles five kinds of cases:

1. Appeals by patent applicants when an examiner has rejected their application at least twice.
2. Appeals by patent owners in reexaminations
3. Inter parte reviews (IPRs)
4. Post Grant Reviews (PGRs)
5. Covered Business Method Patent Reviews (CBMs)

In support of the PTAB’s public outreach and education efforts, it has periodic “Boardside Chats” — presentations by PTAB personnel on various topics. More information about Boardside Chats and details about past events are here. The latest, Behind the scenes at PTAB: Board Operations Division, has a whole lot of good information amongst some fairly routine stuff.

On the USPTO’s trademark side, there is a similar entity called the Trademark Trail and Appeal Board.