"conflicting decisions among panels"

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Law360, New York (May 10, 2016, 10:51 AM ET) -- Certain cases pending at the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board may be ripe for settlement via mediation or arbitration. Under a new PTAB initiative, parties involved in AIA post-grant proceedings are being encouraged to use mediation or arbitration to settle PTAB conflicts. PTAB cases, such as those involving non-competitors, may benefit from an abbreviated alternative dispute resolution process, such as mediation, arbitration or a hybrid ADR process.

PTAB disputes including inter partes review, covered business method proceedings and post-grant review proceedings may...

"The main difference between arbitration and mediation is a simple one: arbitrators hand down decisions, just as judges do, which can only be contested under certain circumstances. In other words, by agreeing to arbitration a party agrees to be bound by the arbitrator’s ruling, barring some exceptional deviation from the normal procedure."

"Mediation n. The attempt to settle a legal dispute through active participation of a third party (mediator) who works to find points of agreement and make those in conflict agree on a fair result. Mediation differs from arbitration in which the third party (arbitrator) acts much like a judge but in an out-of-court less formal setting but does not actively participate in the discussion.
Mediation has become very common in trying to resolve domestic relations disputes (divorce, child custody, visitation), and is often ordered by the judge in such cases.
Mediation also has become more frequent in contract and civil damage cases. There are professional mediators, or lawyers who do some mediation for substantial fees, but the financial cost is less than fighting the matter out in court and may achieve early settlement and an end to anxiety."

That gets back to my previous question...Are they or are they not, in effect, through arbitration between the parties allowing the parties to determine the viability of a patent?

With that, will the arbitration process (non USPTO prosecutions of patents) be challengeable by a named defendant in a subsequent civil case of infringement?

Patent- ability is being prosecuted in this process with a ruling. What's it worth?

Arbitration is not settling ..its defining a patented property.

doni