Supreme Court of the United States
Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC, Petitioner v. Michelle K. Lee, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property…
June 20, 2016195 L. Ed. 2d 423
Summary
The Court held that 35 U.S.C. §314(d) bars judicial review of the Patent Office’s decision to institute inter partes review and that the Patent Office’s regulation requiring the broadest reasonable construction of claims is a permissible exercise of its rulemaking authority. The holdings were based on statutory interpretation applying Chevron and Mead deference principles. Justice Thomas, in a concurring opinion, criticized Chevron deference, and Justice Alito, joined by Sotomayor, partially dissented, arguing that §314(d) should not preclude review of the agency’s compliance with statutory limits.