Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01596/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01596-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 899
Nature of Suit: Other Statutes - Administrative Procedure Act/Review or Appeal of Agency Decision
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

GILBERT P. HYATT,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK 

OFFICE, MICHELLE K. LEE, DIRECTOR, U.S. 

PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE, IN HER 

OFFICIAL CAPACITY,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2014-1596

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Virginia in No. 1:13-cv-01535-CMHTRJ, Senior Judge Claude M. Hilton.

______________________ 

Decided: August 20, 2015

______________________ 

 AARON M. PANNER, Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, 

Evans & Figel, PLLC, Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by MELANIE L. BOSTWICK. 

MARK R. FREEMAN, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, 

United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 

argued for defendants-appellees. Also represented by 

SCOTT R. MCINTOSH, JOYCE R. BRANDA; NATHAN K.

KELLEY, BRIAN THOMAS RACILLA, MOLLY R. SILFEN, Office 

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2 HYATT v. LEE

of the Solicitor, United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Alexandria, VA; DANA J. BOENTE, ANTONIA 

KONKOLY, Office of the United States Attorney for the 

Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria, VA.

______________________ 

Before MOORE, MAYER, and LINN, Circuit Judges.

MOORE, Circuit Judge. 

Gilbert P. Hyatt appeals from the district court’s decision that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his 

Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) claims against the 

Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) and its acting

Director under 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2) and, alternatively,

that the PTO would have been entitled to summary 

judgment for these claims. For the reasons discussed 

below, we affirm the district court’s alternative holding 

that the PTO would have been entitled to summary 

judgment. 

BACKGROUND

Mr. Hyatt is the named inventor on at least 75 issued 

patents and nearly 400 pending patent applications, all of 

which were filed on or before June 8, 1995.1 Because 

1 The number and filing dates of Mr. Hyatt’s applications and the total number of his pending claims are 

publicly available. See Hyatt v. U.S. Patent & Trademark 

Office, No. 1:13-CV-1535, 2014 WL 2446176, at *1 (E.D. 

Va. May 29, 2014); see also Innovation Act: Hearing 

Before H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 113th Cong. 231–44 

(2014), available at http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/

dbb6055f-dffd-4b88-ab5e-20fc7767ed06/113-58-a85281.pdf

(letter published by the House Judiciary Committee 

identifying by inventor name, filing date, and serial 

 

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HYATT v. LEE 3

Mr. Hyatt’s pending applications were filed before the 

effective date of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, any 

patent issuing from the pending applications will have a 

term of seventeen years from the date of issuance. See 35 

U.S.C. § 154 (1994); see also Uruguay Round Agreements 

Act, Pub. L. No. 103-465, § 532(a), 108 Stat. 4809, 4983–

85 (1994). Each of Mr. Hyatt’s pending applications 

incorporates by reference, and claims the benefit of priority from, a network of earlier-filed applications dating back 

to the 1970s. 

Mr. Hyatt’s pending applications feature extremely 

large claim sets, containing, on average, 116 independent 

claims and 299 total claims. The PTO estimated that

these applications include 45,000 independent claims and 

115,000 total claims when combined. Despite the remarkable number of claims, these applications consist of

only 12 distinct specifications. Application number 

05/849,812 illustrates the complexity of Mr. Hyatt’s web 

of pending applications. The ’812 application claims 

priority from 20 earlier-filed applications, and is itself the 

parent of 112 continuing applications. It contains 130 

independent claims and 315 total claims, and is one of 18 

applications sharing a common specification, which together contain 2,160 independent claims. 

In August 2013, the PTO began to issue formal office 

actions, called “Requirements,” corresponding to 

Mr. Hyatt’s “families” of applications having a common 

specification. Each Requirement addresses one family 

and is copied into the file of each application within the 

family. Generally, each Requirement requires Mr. Hyatt 

to: 1) select a number of claims from that family for 

prosecution, not to exceed 600 absent a showing that more 

number the 482 pending patent applications filed before 

June 8, 1995). 

 

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claims are necessary; 2) identify the earliest applicable 

priority date and supporting disclosure for each selected 

claim; and 3) present a copy of the selected claims to the 

PTO. Although each Requirement is entered in the 

prosecution history of a particular patent application, it 

also contains information about other patent applications 

in that family. Much of this information is included in the 

context of explaining the PTO’s decision to impose on 

Mr. Hyatt the obligations outlined in the Requirements. 

For example, the Requirement for the ’812 application 

contains information about pending patent applications

from the same family as the ’812 application. It identifies 

the filing date and serial number of many other pending 

applications, including all of the applications in the same 

family as the ’812 application. It describes the priority 

relationships between the applications in the family and 

with other patent applications. It lists the number of 

total claims and independent claims of every application 

in the family, as well as the total estimated number of 

claims in all of Mr. Hyatt’s applications. It describes the 

prosecution history of other applications in the family, 

including information about the substance of several 

amendments to the applications. And, in a table that 

spans 18 pages, it quotes the full text of dozens of claims 

from applications in the family. 

The prosecution histories of most of Mr. Hyatt’s pending applications include a Requirement corresponding to 

that application’s family. In the ordinary course of examination, the prosecution history of an application remains 

confidential until the application itself issues as a patent 

or an issued patent claims priority from the application.2 

2 35 U.S.C. § 122(b)(1)(A), which provides for the 

publication of certain patent applications 18 months after 

filing, was enacted by Congress in 1999 and only applies 

 

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HYATT v. LEE 5

See 37 C.F.R. § 1.11(a) (“Rule 11(a)”) (covering the publication of PTO records and files); id. § 1.14(a)(1)(v) (“Rule 

14(a)(1)(v)”) (covering the disclosure of parent applications). Thus, the Requirements attached to pending 

applications that are not parents to issued patents will 

remain confidential. However, in a few cases, including 

the ’812 application, an issued patent claims priority from 

one of Mr. Hyatt’s pending applications.3 Requirements 

copied into the prosecution history of these applications 

will become publicly available in the ordinary course of

examination, pursuant to Rule 14(a)(1)(v).4 The disclosure of these Requirements will result in the disclosure of

otherwise-confidential information about other, nonpublic applications. 

In response to the PTO’s issuance of the Requirements, Mr. Hyatt filed a series of petitions at the PTO 

seeking to expunge the confidential information in the 

Requirements. In these petitions, Mr. Hyatt relies on 35 

U.S.C. § 122(a),5 which provides that the PTO shall keep 

applications confidential unless “necessary to carry out 

the provisions of an Act of Congress or in such special 

circumstances as may be determined by the Director.” 

The Director denied Mr. Hyatt’s petitions, declaring it 

“necessary for proper examination of [Mr. Hyatt’s] applito patent applications filed on or after November 9, 2000. 

The parties agree that this section is inapplicable to 

Mr. Hyatt’s pending patent applications, which were all 

filed before June 8, 1995.

3 Other examples include application numbers 

06/848,017; 07/493,061; 07/763,395; and 08/285,669. 

4 At Mr. Hyatt’s request, the PTO has agreed to 

keep these Requirements confidential pending the outcome of this litigation.

5 As discussed supra note 2, § 122(b)(1)(A) is inapplicable to Mr. Hyatt’s pending patent applications.

 

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6 HYATT v. LEE

cations under 35 U.S.C. § 131” to include the otherwiseconfidential information in the Requirements. J.A. 234. 

She also stated that “the circumstances surrounding these 

applications, including the number of related applications 

filed, the number of claims filed, and the number of 

applications to which benefit of priority is claimed, qualify 

as ‘special circumstances’ under section 122.” Id. She

wrote that the Requirements attached to alreadypublished applications that were parents to issued patents (including the ’812 application) would be made 

public within 60 days.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Hyatt filed claims in the 

Eastern District of Virginia against the PTO and its 

acting Director, in her official capacity, under the APA, 

5 U.S.C. §§ 702, 706. Mr. Hyatt alleged that disclosure of 

the Requirements would violate § 122(a) by disclosing

confidential information about Mr. Hyatt’s non-public 

patent applications. 

On the PTO’s motion, the district court dismissed 

Mr. Hyatt’s complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2), holding that there was no 

“judicially manageable standard of review” under which it 

could assess the PTO’s decision to issue the Requirements. Hyatt, 2014 WL 2446176, at *3. In the alternative, the district court held that § 122 did not prohibit the 

disclosure of the Requirements, such that the PTO would 

be entitled to summary judgment. First, it reasoned that

the information in the Requirements was necessary to 

carry out the provisions of an Act of Congress, particularly § 131, which provides that the Director “shall cause an 

examination to be made” of properly filed patent applications. Id. at *5–6. Second, it found that there was no 

genuine dispute that the “extraordinary” nature and 

prosecution history of Mr. Hyatt’s applications constituted 

“special circumstances,” warranting publication of the 

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HYATT v. LEE 7

Requirements. Id. at *6. Mr. Hyatt appealed. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

We review a district court’s decision to dismiss for 

lack of subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Pennington 

Seed, Inc. v. Produce Exch. No. 299, 457 F.3d 1334, 1338 

(Fed. Cir. 2006). We review a district court’s grant of 

summary judgment de novo, under the same standards 

applied by the district court. Star Fruits S.N.C. v. United 

States, 393 F.3d 1277, 1281 (Fed. Cir. 2005). In an APA 

challenge, we consider whether the PTO’s actions were 

arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise 

not in accordance with law. Id. (citing 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)).

Mr. Hyatt argues that the PTO’s publication of the 

Requirements would violate § 122(a), because it would

result in the disclosure of confidential information about 

his non-public pending applications. The PTO argues 

that § 122(a), which allows the Director to disclose information concerning pending patent applications where 

“necessary to carry out the provisions of an Act of Congress or in such special circumstances as may be determined by the Director,” commits to the Director’s 

discretion the authority to determine whether “special 

circumstances” exist. The PTO asserts that agency determinations of this type lie outside of the scope of the 

APA. Alternatively, it argues that the Director correctly 

determined that “special circumstances” exist and that 

the disclosure of the Requirements is necessary to carry 

out the provisions of an Act of Congress. 

I. Reviewability of Director’s “Special Circumstances” 

Determination 

There is a “strong presumption” favoring judicial review of agency actions. Bowen v. Mich. Acad. of Family 

Physicians, 476 U.S. 667, 670 (1986). However, this 

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presumption can be rebutted if “a statute’s language or 

structure demonstrates that Congress wanted [the] agency to police its own conduct.” Mach Mining, LLC v. 

E.E.O.C., 135 S. Ct. 1645, 1651 (2015) (citing Block v. 

Cmty. Nutrition Inst., 467 U.S. 340, 349 (1984)). For 

example, § 701(a)(2) of the APA precludes judicial review 

where “agency action is committed to agency discretion by 

law.” 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2). This “very narrow exception” 

to the presumption of judicial review is applicable only “in 

those rare instances where ‘statutes are drawn in such 

broad terms that in a given case there is no law to apply.’” 

Citizens to Pres. Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 

410 (1971) (quoting S. Rep. No. 79-752, at 26 (1945)). 

Section 122(a) lays out a broad rule prohibiting the

disclosure of patent applications, subject to two exceptions: 

Applications for patents shall be kept in confidence by the [PTO] and no information concerning 

the same given without authority of the applicant 

or owner unless necessary to carry out the provisions of an Act of Congress or in such special circumstances as may be determined by the Director. 

Thus, applications may be disclosed only if (1) the disclosure is “necessary to carry out the provisions of an Act of 

Congress” or (2) there are “such special circumstances as 

may be determined by the Director.” § 122(a).

The PTO argues that Congress vested consideration of 

the second of these two exceptions—the “special circumstances” inquiry—in the Director alone, thereby committing it to agency discretion by law. According to the PTO, 

this statutory language “fairly exudes deference” and 

“foreclose[s] the application of any meaningful judicial 

standard of review.” Appellees’ Br. 23 (quoting Webster v. 

Doe, 486 U.S. 592, 600 (1988) (alterations in Appellees’ 

Br.)). The PTO also argues that there is no meaningful 

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standard for reviewing the Director’s determination that 

particular circumstances qualify as special. It notes, for 

example, that § 122(a) does not require the Director to 

consider particular factors, find specific facts, or create an 

evidentiary record. Thus, the PTO concludes that 

§ 701(a)(2) of the APA precludes judicial review of the 

Director’s determination that “special circumstances” 

justify the disclosure of certain Requirements.

A. Language and Structure of § 122(a)

The structure of § 122(a) reflects Congress’ intent to 

protect the confidentiality of patent applications. The 

statute begins by stating that “[a]pplications for patents 

shall be kept in confidence by the [PTO] and no information concerning the same given . . . .” § 122(a). The 

“shall” makes this language mandatory, not discretionary. 

Mach Mining, 135 S. Ct. at 1651; Nat’l R.R. Passenger 

Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 109 (2002). The statute 

then lays out only two exceptions to its general bar on 

disclosure. The first exception permits disclosure only 

when it is “necessary to carry out the provisions of an Act 

of Congress.” § 122(a). Because this exception is limited 

to disclosures that are “necessary” to carry out a Congressional mandate, it is narrow and affords no agency discretion. In light of this statutory structure, it would be odd if 

the second exception was broad, sweeping, or unbounded. 

The language of the second exception supports our conclusion that the PTO’s determination is reviewable. The 

PTO is not free to disclose confidential information whenever it chooses, or at its discretion; rather, it may disclose 

confidential information only in “such special circumstances as may be determined by the Director.” Id. We 

conclude that the structure and language of this statutory 

section indicate that Congress intended the exceptions to 

confidentiality to be narrow and reviewable. 

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Where courts have previously held laws unreviewable 

under § 701(a)(2), those laws differed from § 122(a) in 

important ways. While the language of the statute at 

issue in Webster is close to the language of § 122(a), there 

are significant distinctions. In Webster, the Supreme 

Court considered § 102(c) of the National Security Act 

(“NSA”), which permitted the CIA Director, “in his discretion,” to terminate an employee “whenever he shall deem 

such termination necessary or advisable in the interests 

of the United States.” 486 U.S. at 600 (quoting 50 U.S.C. 

§ 403(c) (1982)). Unlike § 102(c) of the NSA, § 122(a) does 

not implicate the nation’s security. Cf. id. at 601 (noting 

that the overall history and structure of the NSA exhibit 

its “extraordinary deference to the Director,” and that 

“the [CIA’s] efficacy, and the Nation’s security, depend in 

large measure on the reliability and trustworthiness of 

the Agency’s employees”). Congress often grants an 

agency acting in the interest of national security more 

discretion, so that decision-makers at the agency are able 

to act in ways that will best protect the safety of the 

public. Moreover, unlike the statute at issue in Webster, 

§ 122(a) does not “exude[] deference.” 486 U.S. at 600. 

Rather, § 122(a) lays out a broad and mandatory prohibition on the disclosure of patent applications, subject to 

narrow exceptions. And the “special circumstances” 

exception does not permit the Director to disclose applications whenever she deems such disclosure “advisable,” as 

with the statute in Webster, but only if she determines 

that there are “special circumstances.”

In other cases, the laws found unreviewable have also 

lacked the express prohibition so key to the structure of 

§ 122(a). In Almond Bros. Lumber Co. v. United States, 

we found the United States Trade Representative’s

(“USTR”) determination that certain trade benefits were 

“satisfactory” was not reviewable under § 701(a)(2). 721 

F.3d 1320, 1325–27 (Fed. Cir. 2013). 19 U.S.C. § 2411 

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authorized the USTR to enter into agreements with 

foreign countries that, inter alia, “provide[d] the United 

States with compensatory trade benefits that . . . are 

satisfactory to the [USTR].” 19 U.S.C. § 2411(c)(1)(D). 

Section 2411 is not structured such that the USTR is 

expressly prohibited from entering agreements with 

foreign countries, subject to certain exceptions, as § 122(a) 

is with respect to the disclosure of patent applications. 

Similarly, § 122(a) differs from the regulation at issue in 

Tamenut v. Mukasey, which provided that the Board of 

Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) “may at any time reopen or 

reconsider on its own motion any [appeal] in which it has 

rendered a decision. . . . The decision to grant or deny a 

motion to reopen or reconsider is within the discretion of 

the [BIA], subject to the restrictions of this section.” 521 

F.3d 1000, 1002 (8th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (quoting 

8 C.F.R. § 1003.2(a)). This regulation committed the 

decision to reopen an appeal entirely to the BIA’s discretion; it did not lay out an affirmative rule with a discretionary exception, as § 122(a) does. Id. And the language 

of the regulation—which permits the BIA to reopen an 

appeal “at any time,” and expressly states that such a 

decision is “within the discretion of the [BIA],” is more 

discretionary on its face than § 122(a).6 Id. 

Finally, § 122(a) is distinguishable from 49 U.S.C. 

§ 44702(d) (1997), which was found unreviewable in 

Steenholdt v. FAA, 314 F.3d 633, 638 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

Section 44702(d)(2) permits the FAA Administrator to 

revoke an aircraft inspector’s designation “at any time for 

any reason the Administrator considers appropriate.” 

6 The BIA’s decision to limit its power to grant motions to reopen appeals to “exceptional situations” does 

not make the language of the regulation irrelevant. 

Tamenut, 521 F.3d at 1004–05.

 

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There is no express statutory bar on revoking an aircraft 

inspector’s designation, as exists in § 122(a). Furthermore, the language of § 44702(d)(2) is broad and does not 

require any specific finding or determination, unlike 

§ 122(a), which requires a determination that “special 

circumstances” exist. Finally, like the statute at issue in 

Webster, granting the FAA broad discretion to revoke an 

aircraft inspector’s designation promotes the safety of the 

public; there is no similar public safety interest at play 

here. 

Were we to accept the PTO’s argument, the PTO could 

shield virtually any disclosure from judicial review, so 

long as the PTO claimed there were “special circumstances.” Indeed, the PTO conceded at oral argument that if 

§ 122(a) was unreviewable the PTO could disclose essentially any information about any patent application, with 

no review and no recourse, so long as there was no constitutional violation. See Oral Argument at 30:30–37, 

34:40–57, available at http://oralarguments.cafc.

uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=2014-1596.mp3. “We need 

not doubt the [PTO’s] trustworthiness, or its fidelity to 

law, to shy away from that result. We need only know—

and know that Congress knows—that legal lapses and 

violations occur, and especially so when they have no 

consequence.” Mach Mining, 135 S. Ct. at 1652–53. 

Congress did not intend for the exception to swallow the 

rule.

B. Statutory Standard for Reviewing the Director’s 

Determination 

The PTO also argues that § 122(a) is not reviewable 

because it contains no meaningful standard for reviewing 

the Director’s determination that particular circumstances qualify as special. It is true that § 122(a) does not lay 

out a specific process or outline specific considerations for 

determining the existence of “special circumstances.” 

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However, we do not think this means “there is no law to 

apply,” such that the statute is unreviewable. Overton 

Park, 401 U.S. at 410. The second exception to § 122(a) 

permits review “in such special circumstances as may be 

determined by the Director.” § 122(a). At the minimum, 

not taking into account the rest of § 122(a), this language 

indicates there is one concrete, reviewable requirement: 

the Director must determine that there are “special

circumstances.” The lack of specific factors outlined in 

the statute does not mean that the Director can disclose 

information without such a finding being reviewable. See 

Mach Mining, 135 S. Ct. at 1652. We reject the PTO’s 

argument that the lack of enumerated factors means that 

the statute is unreviewable. 

C. Scope of Review

Having found the PTO’s “special circumstances” determination reviewable, we must next consider the scope 

of that review. Unsurprisingly, the PTO and Mr. Hyatt 

dispute the extent of our review. At oral argument, the 

PTO relied on Mach Mining to argue that our review 

should be limited to the bare minimum required by

§ 122(a)—“that the Director has, for example, not decreed 

that all patents are special circumstances, but has identified a discrete subset,” without any consideration of the 

merits of the Director’s determination. Oral Argument at 

33:53–34:03. Mr. Hyatt disagrees, arguing instead that 

the PTO must show that “disclosure is necessary to serve 

an important statutory or public interest.” Appellant’s 

Br. 33. We hold that the proper scope of review lies 

somewhere between these two extremes. The PTO must 

not only determine that special circumstances exist, but 

also that the special circumstances justify the specific 

content to be disclosed. We review this determination for 

abuse of discretion.

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In Mach Mining, the Supreme Court considered the 

extent to which courts could review the EEOC’s informal 

conciliation process. 135 S. Ct. at 1653–56. In certain 

circumstances, the EEOC is required to “endeavor” to 

resolve employment discrimination complaints through 

“informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b). Only if the EEOC is “unable to secure from the respondent a conciliation 

agreement acceptable to the [EEOC]” itself may it sue the 

employer. Id. § 2000e-5(f)(1). Noting that the EEOC has

extensive deference in how it conducts the conciliation 

process, including discretion over “the pace and duration 

of conciliation efforts, the plasticity or firmness of its 

negotiating positions, and the content of its demands for 

relief,” the Supreme Court held that judicial review over 

these considerations “is not to enforce the law Congress 

wrote, but to impose extra procedural requirements. Such 

judicial review extends too far.” Mach Mining, 135 S. Ct. 

at 1654–55. Mach Mining stands for the proposition that, 

when a statute provides an agency with “wide latitude” in 

an action, the scope of review over that action may be 

narrower. Id. at 1652. 

The scope of review proposed by the PTO at oral argument—that our review of the PTO’s “special circumstances” determination is limited to ensuring that the 

PTO has disclosed only a subset of all pending applications—is too narrow. See Oral Argument at 33:53–34:03. 

We do not think § 122(a), with its mandatory bar on 

disclosure and its two narrow exceptions, exudes discretion, as the PTO argues. Under the PTO’s proposed 

standard, we would be required to affirm any disclosure 

by the PTO without considering the merits of the PTO’s 

determination, so long as there was no constitutional 

violation and so long as the PTO disclosed only a subset of 

all pending applications. Under this standard, the PTO 

can easily evade § 122(a)’s affirmative bar on disclosure. 

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We will not interpret the PTO’s discretion to determine 

that special circumstances exist so broadly as to make the 

rest of § 122(a) irrelevant. And, unlike in Mach Mining, 

further review does not conflict with or contradict other 

statutory requirements. See 135 S. Ct. at 1655.

Mr. Hyatt, by contrast, seeks too much when he argues the disclosure of the confidential material must be 

necessary to serve an important statutory or public interest. Nothing in the text of § 122(a) indicates that the 

Director’s “special circumstances” determination must be 

driven by some statutory or public interest. To the contrary, the first statutory exception in § 122(a)—that 

disclosure is “necessary to carry out the provisions of an

Act of Congress”—would be rendered superfluous under 

this interpretation.

Section 122(a) lays out a general prohibition against 

disclosure; any determination by the Director that special 

circumstances exist must be made in light of this bar 

against disclosure. The special circumstances must 

justify the otherwise-prohibited disclosure of confidential 

information. This means that the information that is

disclosed must be linked to the “special circumstances” 

justifying the disclosure. We review for abuse of discretion the Director’s determination that special circumstances exist, and that such special circumstances justify 

the disclosure of otherwise-confidential information. See

5 U.S.C. § 706(2); Star Fruits, 393 F.3d at 1281.

II. “Special Circumstances” Determination 

Having found the Director’s “special circumstances” 

determination reviewable under the APA, we next consider whether the Director abused her discretion under the 

standard discussed above. We agree with the district 

court that the Director did not abuse her discretion when 

she found that special circumstances justified the PTO’s 

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disclosure of confidential information in the Requirements. 

The PTO issued the Requirements because of Mr. Hyatt’s “unusually large number of duplicative and overlapping applications, with such a large number of redundant 

claims.” J.A. 236. With more than 115,000 total claims 

spread out among only 12 distinct specifications, each 

family of applications has an average of 9,583 pending 

claims. The asserted priority relationships between 

Mr. Hyatt’s applications are complex, with numerous 

overlapping applications. As the district court wrote, 

“[t]he Administrative Record confirms that the circumstances of [Mr. Hyatt’s] patent applications and his prosecution history are extraordinary.” Hyatt, 2014 WL 

2446176, at *6. These circumstances are not just special—they are unique. We are aware of no other applicant 

with the same volume of claims as Mr. Hyatt, where those 

claims were filed before June 8, 1995, and where any 

patent stemming from those claims will have a term of 17

years, beginning from the date of issuance of the patent. 

The PTO’s determination that special circumstances exist 

in Mr. Hyatt’s applications is a narrow one, unlikely to 

affect other cases.

In light of the nature of Mr. Hyatt’s applications, longstanding PTO rules justify the issuance of the Requirements. 37 C.F.R. § 1.75(b) provides that, in a patent 

application, “[m]ore than one claim may be presented 

provided they differ substantially from each other and are 

not unduly multiplied” (emphasis added). The PTO 

issued the Requirements to ensure that Mr. Hyatt’s 

applications complied with § 1.75(b). Given the extraordinary number and duplicative nature of Mr. Hyatt’s 

various pending applications, all drawn from the same 12

specifications, it was reasonable for the PTO to be concerned that the claims did not “differ substantially from 

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plied.” § 1.75(b). In fact, in the Requirements the PTO 

demonstrates that across these applications, Mr. Hyatt 

has in numerous cases filed identical or nearly identical 

claims. This sort of redundant, repetitive claiming is 

inconsistent with § 1.75(b). 

These special circumstances, which justify issuing the 

Requirements, also justify the disclosure of the confidential information contained in them. The Requirements 

are part of the prosecution history of the applications to 

which they are attached. As a result, certain Requirements are now part of the prosecution history of applications that are parents to issued patents, and therefore are 

publicly available. Rule 14(a)(1)(v).7 The publication of 

the prosecution history of issued patents under Rule 11(a) 

and the prosecution history of pending parent applications to issued patents under Rule 14(a)(1)(v) will allow 

the public to understand the scope of the issued claims.

This reasoning applies not just to the Requirements 

generally, but also to the specific confidential information 

disclosed by the Requirements. Although the Requirements contain significant amounts of information typically kept confidential, Mr. Hyatt only challenges the PTO’s 

disclosure of the full text of claim language from unpublished applications and the discussions of the nature 

7 Rule 14(a)(1)(v) authorizes the PTO to make parent applications to issued patents available to the public 

upon written request for a fee. It does not speak to 

whether the PTO may publish this information for free on 

the PTO internet portal. Nonetheless, it authorizes public 

disclosure of the information. Once disclosed, we do not 

think wider publication of the information will greatly 

harm the applicant. In this context, we see little distinction between making material publicly available for a fee 

and making that material available online for free.

 

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18 HYATT v. LEE

of certain amendments to the pending applications in the 

Requirements. This is because much of the normallyconfidential information is not confidential in Mr. Hyatt’s 

case. The relevant specifications here have already been 

disclosed as part of the published prosecution history. 

Hyatt, 2014 WL 2446176, at *7; see also Appellees’ Br. 15 

n.9. Information about the filing dates, the serial numbers, and the number of claims in Mr. Hyatt’s pending 

applications has also already been disclosed.

The special circumstances of Mr. Hyatt’s case, and the 

volume and interwoven nature of his claims, also justify 

the disclosure of the substance of certain amendments to 

the pending applications in the Requirements. For example, the Requirement corresponding to the ’812 application describes the prosecution history of other 

applications in the family, including specific information 

about several amendments to these applications. The 

PTO included this information to explain its suspicion 

that Mr. Hyatt’s claims were “unduly multiplied.” The 

specific nature of the amendments to the applications

demonstrates how the number of Mr. Hyatt’s claims has

multiplied over the course of prosecution. Again, the 

disclosure of this information may help the public understand the claimed scope of the ’812 application, as well as 

explain the requirements the PTO imposed upon

Mr. Hyatt and any further constraints it places upon his 

applications. The PTO did not abuse its discretion when 

it found that the special circumstances of Mr. Hyatt’s 

situation justify the disclosure of the substance of many of 

Mr. Hyatt’s amendments to his applications. 

We also note that given the large number of claims at 

issue, the newly disclosed information is minimal; the 

specifications have already been disclosed, as have the 

filing dates, the serial numbers, and the number of claims 

in Mr. Hyatt’s pending applications. The PTO did not 

simply publish the applications in their entirety. It 

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HYATT v. LEE 19

identified certain confidential information as necessary to 

establish how Mr. Hyatt’s applications were in conflict 

with § 1.75(b) and to justify the Requirements it was 

imposing on him. We hold that the Director did not abuse 

her discretion when she found that the “special circumstances” exception justified the otherwise-prohibited 

disclosure of the Requirements. Because we hold that 

§ 122(a)’s “special circumstances” exception permits the 

PTO to disclose certain Requirements, we need not consider whether the disclosure of the Requirements is 

“necessary to carry out the provisions of an Act of Congress.” 

CONCLUSION

We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment. 

AFFIRMED

We award costs to the PTO.

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