Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

8–9).  APJs  do  so  when  reconsidering  an  issued  patent,  a 
power that (the Court has held) involves the adjudication of
public rights that Congress may appropriately assign to ex-
ecutive officers rather than to the Judiciary.  See Oil States, 
584 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 8–9). 

The starting point for each party’s analysis is our opinion 
in Edmond.  There we explained that “[w]hether one is an
‘inferior’  officer  depends  on  whether  he  has  a  superior”
other  than  the  President.    520  U. S.,  at  662.   An  inferior 
officer  must  be  “directed  and  supervised  at  some  level  by
others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with
the advice and consent of the Senate.”  Id., at 663. 

In Edmond, we applied this test to adjudicative officials 
within  the  Executive  Branch—specifically,  Coast  Guard 
Court of Criminal Appeals judges appointed by the Secre-
tary of Transportation.  See id., at 658.  We held that the 
judges were inferior officers  because they were effectively
supervised  by  a  combination  of  Presidentially  nominated 
and  Senate  confirmed  officers  in  the  Executive  Branch: 
first, the Judge Advocate General, who “exercise[d] admin-
istrative oversight over the Court of Criminal Appeals” by
prescribing rules of procedure and formulating policies for 
court-martial  cases,  and  could  also  “remove  a  Court  of 
Criminal Appeals judge from his judicial assignment with-
out cause”; and second, the Court of Appeals for the Armed
Forces, an executive tribunal that could review the judges’
decisions  under  a  de novo  standard  for  legal  issues  and  a 
deferential  standard  for  factual  issues.    Id.,  at  664–665. 
“What  is  significant,”  we  concluded,  “is  that  the  judges  of 
the Court of Criminal Appeals have no power to render a 
final decision on behalf of the United States unless permit-
ted to do so by other Executive officers.”  Id., at 665. 

Congress structured the PTAB differently, providing only
half  of  the  “divided”  supervision  to  which  judges  of  the 
Court of Criminal Appeals were subject.  Id., at 664.  Like 
the  Judge  Advocate  General,  the  PTO  Director  possesses