Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 41.0

22 

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

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

out of hand.  But the Court today will not say whether man-
damus is available where the §314(d) bar applies, and the 
Federal  Circuit  has  cast  doubt  on  that  possibility.    In re 
Power Integrations, Inc., 899 F. 3d 1316, 1319 (2018) (“We 
have  held  that  the  statutory  prohibition  on  appeals  from 
decisions not to institute inter partes review cannot be side-
stepped simply by styling the request for review as a peti-
tion for mandamus”); In re Procter & Gamble Co., 749 F. 3d 
1376  (2014);  In  re  Dominion  Dealer  Solutions,  LLC.,  749 
F. 3d 1379 (2014).  Even assuming mandamus is available, 
it is a “drastic [remedy], to be invoked only in extraordinary
situations.”  Kerr v. United States Dist. Court for Northern 
Dist. of Cal., 426 U. S. 394, 402 (1976).  To be eligible for 
this  discretionary  relief,  a  petitioner  must  first  show  a 
“clear and indisputable” right.  Id., at 403 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted).  But how often could a litigant show 
such  a  “clear  and  indisputable”  right  in  an  area  where
courts shirk their duty to say what the law is in the first
place?  And how would a court find the will to call a situa-
tion  “extraordinary”  once  the  agency  has  been  free  for  so
long to ignore the limits on its power?  If the case before us 
doesn’t qualify as “extraordinary,” and if the Board’s admit-
ted flouting of §315(b) isn’t “clear and indisputable,” then 
what  extralegal  act  wouldn’t  be  just  another  day  at  the 
office? 

* 
Two  years  ago,  this  Court  sanctioned  a  departure  from
the constitutional plan, one in which the Executive Branch
assumed responsibilities long reserved to the Judiciary.  In 
so doing, we denied inventors the right to have their claims
tried before independent judges and juries.  Today we com-
pound  that  error,  not  only  requiring  patent  owners  to  try 
their  disputes  before  employees  of  a  political  branch,  but 
limiting their ability to obtain judicial review  when those