Supreme Court Sides With PTO in IPR Case

The Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to hear an inter partes review challenge isn’t reviewable on appeal, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Monday, siding with PTO. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor dissented in Thryv v. Click-to-Call (18-916). Click-to-Call argued that courts should be able to review circumstances involving time limits for certain patent reviews. The case pertains to 35 U.S.C. §315(b). “Allowing §315(b) appeals would waste resources" spent on resolving patentability and would leave “bad patents enforceable,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. Gorsuch said the decision “carries us another step down the road of ceding core judicial powers to agency officials and leaving the disposition of private rights and liberties to bureaucratic mercy.” The court let the agency override one of the America Invents Act’s “express limits on agency authority,” Click-to-Call attorney Daniel Geyser emailed. “It’s now a question for Congress to restore the judiciary’s traditional role in reviewing agency action and saying what the law is.”