Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 23

4 

THRYV, INC. v. CLICK-TO-CALL TECHNOLOGIES, LP 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

Microsoft  Corp.  v.  i4i L.  P.,  564 U. S.  91  (2011).    Perhaps 
most  appealing,  proceedings  take  place  before  the  Patent
Trial and Appeal Board, rather than in an Article III court,
so there is no jury trial before a tenure-protected judge, only
a hearing before a panel of agency employees.

Some  say  the  new  regime  represents  a  particularly
efficient new way to “kill” patents.  Certainly, the numbers 
tell an inviting story for petitioners like Thryv.  In approx-
imately  80%  of  cases  reaching  a  final  decision,  the 
Board  cancels  some  or  all  of  the  challenged  claims.
Patent  Trial  and  Appeal  Board,  Trial  Statistics  10  (Feb.
2020),  https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/
Trial_Statistics_2020_02_29.pdf.  The Board has been busy,
too,  instituting  more  than  800  of  these  new  proceedings 
every year.  See id., at 6. 

Still, Thryv faced a hurdle.  Inter partes review “may not 
be  instituted”  based  on  an  administrative  petition  filed
more than a year after “the petitioner, real party in inter-
est, or privy of the petitioner is served with a complaint al-
leging  infringement  of  the  patent”  in  federal  court.    35 
U. S. C. §315(b).  So, while Congress sought to move many 
cases out of court and into its new administrative process, 
it  thought  patent  owners  who  have  already  endured  long
challenges in court shouldn’t have to face another layer of
administrative review.  After all, some repose is due inven-
tors.  Patents typically last 20 years; what happens to the 
incentive to invent if litigation over them lasts even longer 
(as  it  has  for  Mr.  DuVal)?    By  anyone’s  estimation,  too, 
§315(b)’s  time  bar  was  sure  to  pose  a  special  problem  for 
Thryv.    Yes,  Thryv  had  petitioned  for  inter  partes  review
one  year  after  being  served  with  CTC’s  complaint.    But 
nearly 12 years had passed since Thryv’s predecessor and 
privy first found itself on the business end of a lawsuit al-
leging that it had infringed Mr. DuVal’s patent. 

Despite  this  apparently  fatal  defect,  the  Board  plowed