Supreme Court Will Examine How Government Agency Reviews Patents
The Supreme Court recently agreed to review a case that will give the court its first chance to examine an administrative process through which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office evaluates challenges to patents. The administrative process, known as inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, has allowed technology companies in particular to quickly and at least partially invalidate patents without going to court. The case itself is titled Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee. It involves Cuozzo’s patent for an invention that lets drivers know when they are speeding. Garmin Ltd. brought an IPR proceeding and argued that some of the claims within the patent were obvious in light of prior inventions, and the process successfully invalidated several claims within the patent.
The Supreme Court agreed to evaluate two different issues. First, it will evaluate whether the patent board “may construe claims in an issued patent according to their broadest reasonable interpretation rather than their plain and ordinary meaning.” Although the USPTO has always construed patent claims broadly, federal courts traditionally evaluate patent claims much more narrowly. Second, the Court will evaluate whether a federal court may review the decision to instate an IPR proceeding “even if the Board exceeds its statutory authority in instituting an IPR proceeding.” The Federal Circuit below ruled that it cannot undertake such a review.
IPRs, which first began in 2012, were part of a Congressional overhaul of the U.S. patent system, and they were intended to make patent challenges less expensive and less time-consuming. But some commentators have argued that they’ve done their job a little too well. Cuozzo argues that within approximately 85 percent of these proceedings, some or all of the patent claims challenged have been canceled. Thus, this Supreme Court case has the potential to leave an important impact on the U.S. patent review system for years to come.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/patent-death-squad-rules-draw-u-s-supreme-court-scrutiny http://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-to-consider-rules-on-patent-challenges-1452892902 http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/01/15/supreme-court-accepts-cuozzo-speed-technologies-ipr-appeal/id=65076/
For more information on this topic, please visit our Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceedings service page, which is part of our Patent practice.
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