{"id":1293,"date":"2016-10-20T17:08:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T21:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2016-10-21T17:34:43","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T21:34:43","slug":"congress-made-a-rock-so-heavy-that-the-courts-cant-pick-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1293","title":{"rendered":"Congress Made a Rock So Heavy that the Courts Can’t Pick it Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Medtronic, Inc. v. Robert BoschHealthcare Systems, Inc.<\/em>, [2015-1977, 2015-1986, 2015-1987] (October 20, 2016), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit\u00a0reaffirmed its earlier order that the PTAB\u2019s vacatur\u00a0of its institution decisions and termination of the
\nproceedings constitute decisions whether to institute inter\u00a0partes review and are therefore \u201cfinal and nonappealable\u201d\u00a0under \u00a7 314(d).<\/p>\n

A decision whether to institute inter partes review is\u00a0\u201cfinal and nonappealable\u201d under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 314(d). \u00a0The Supreme Court confirmed this in\u00a0Cuozzo\u00a0Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee<\/em>, 136 S. Ct. 2131 (2016), holding that\u00a0\u00a7314(d) operates to bar review in cases\u00a0where the challenge consists of questions that are “closely tied\u201d or \u201cclosely related\u201d to \u201cthe application and\u00a0interpretation of statutes related to the Patent Office\u2019s
\ndecision to initiate inter partes review.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit\u00a0concluded that under Cuozzo<\/em> a decision whether to\u00a0institute inter partes review proceedings pursuant to\u00a0\u00a7314(a) (the issue in Cuozzo<\/em>) and a reconsideration of\u00a0that decision (the current situation are both barred from\u00a0review by \u00a7 314(d). \u00a0The Federal Circuit said that\u00a0It is difficult to conceive of a case more \u201cclosely related\u201d to\u00a0a decision to institute proceedings than a reconsideration\u00a0of that very decision. adding that “[i]t would be strange to hold that a\u00a0decision to institute review would not be reviewable but a\u00a0reconsideration of that decision would be reviewable.”<\/p>\n

While Medtronic correctly pointed out that\u00a0Cuozzo reserved the question\u00a0of \u00a7314(d)\u2019s effect on \u201cappeals that implicate constitutional\u00a0questions, that depend on other less closely related\u00a0statutes, or that present other questions of interpretation\u00a0that reach, in terms of scope and impact, well beyond \u2018this\u00a0section.\u2019\u201d The Federal Circuit did not agree that these issues applied here.<\/p>\n

Although the result seemed preordained by Cuozzo<\/em>, one can relate to Medtronic’s incredulity that Congress can give decision making authority to a government agency, and then completely insulate that agency’s exercise of that authority from review by courts,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Medtronic, Inc. v. Robert BoschHealthcare Systems, Inc., [2015-1977, 2015-1986, 2015-1987] (October 20, 2016), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit\u00a0reaffirmed its earlier order that the PTAB\u2019s vacatur\u00a0of its institution decisions and termination of the proceedings constitute decisions whether … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inter-partes-review"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1294,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions\/1294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}