Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 35

16 

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

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

a decision shielded from judicial review under any interpre-
tation of §314(d).  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 12).  So all the dis-
cussion about the reviewability of decisions outside §314(a)
turned out to be nothing more than dicta entirely unneces-
sary to the decision.  Nor did anything in Cuozzo directly
address  §315(b)  decisions,  let  alone  declare  them  to 
be  “close  enough”  to  §314(a)  decisions  to  preclude  judicial
review. 

That’s just the beginning of Thryv’s precedent problems, 
too.  In SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, 584 U. S. ___ (2018), an 
inter  partes  review  petitioner  challenged  the  Director’s
practice  of  instituting  review  of  some,  but  not  all,  of  the 
claims challenged in a single petition.  The government ar-
gued  there—much  as  Thryv  argues  today—that  §314(d) 
shielded this unlawful practice from judicial review.  In ad-
vancing this argument, the government seized on the same
language  in  Cuozzo  that  Thryv  now  embraces,  claiming 
that its opponent’s “grounds for attacking the decision . . . 
are  closely  tied”  to  the  §314(a)  institution  decision.    Brief 
for Federal Respondent in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, O. T. 
2017, No. 16–969, p. 13.  Because no one could say that the 
petitioner’s argument in SAS Institute was “little more than 
a challenge to the Patent Office’s conclusion under §314(a),” 
584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13), we were forced to confront
whether Cuozzo and the relevant statutes actually barred
not  just  institution  decisions  under  §314(a)  but  things 
“closely related” to them.

We held they did not.  We began, as we did in Cuozzo, by
noting the “strong presumption in favor of judicial review.” 
SAS  Institute,  584  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  13)  (internal 
quotation marks omitted).  We then put an end to any doubt
about what the dicta in that case might mean:  “Given the 
strength of this presumption and the statute’s text, Cuozzo 
concluded that §314(d) precludes judicial review only of the 
Director’s  ‘initial  determination’  under  §314(a).”    Ibid. 
(quoting Cuozzo, 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9); emphasis