Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 39.0

20 

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

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

are not so fortunate proceed to an administrative “trial” be-
fore a panel of agency employees that the Director also has 
the means to control.  The AIA gives the Director the power
to select which employees, and how many of them, will hear 
any particular inter partes challenge.  It also gives him the
power  to  decide  how  much  they  are  paid.    And  if  a  panel 
reaches a result he doesn’t like, the Director claims he may
order rehearing before a new panel, of any size, and includ-
ing even himself.

No one can doubt that this regime favors those with po-
litical clout, the powerful and the popular.  But what about 
those  who  lack  the  resources  or  means  to  influence  and 
maybe even capture a politically guided agency?  Consider 
Mr. DuVal, who 25 years ago, came up with something the 
Patent Office agreed was novel and useful.  His patent sur-
vived not only that initial review but a subsequent admin-
istrative ex parte review, a lawsuit, and the initiation of an-
other.  Yet,  now,  after  the  patent  has  expired,  it  is
challenged  in  still  another  administrative  proceeding  and
retroactively  expunged  by  an  agency  that  has,  by  its  own 
admission, acted unlawfully.  That is what happens when
power is not balanced against power and executive action
goes  unchecked  by  judicial  review.    Rather  than  securing
incentives to invent, the regime creates incentives to curry
favor with officials in Washington. 

Nor is it hard to imagine what might lie around the cor-
ner.  Despite repeated lawsuits, no court ever ruled defini-
tively on Mr. DuVal’s patents.  But suppose one had—and
suppose  he  had  prevailed.    According  to  the  agency,  even
that judgment might not matter much.  In other cases, the 
Board has claimed the power through inter partes review 
to overrule final judicial judgments affirming patent rights.
In  the  Director’s  estimation,  it  appears,  even  this  Court’s 
decisions  must  bow  to  the  Board’s  will.    See  XY,  LLC  v. 
Trans  Ova  Genetics,  L.  C.,  890  F. 3d  1282,  1285–1286, 
1294–1295  (CA  Fed.  2018);  Fresenius  USA,  Inc.  v.  Baxter