Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-712_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

10 

OIL STATES ENERGY SERVICES, LLC v. GREENE’S 
ENERGY GROUP, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 

prohibit  the  Board  from  resolving  it  outside  of  an  Article 
III court. 

B 
  Oil  States  challenges  this  conclusion,  citing  three  deci-
sions that recognize patent rights as the “private property 
of the patentee.”  American Bell Telephone Co., 128 U. S., 
at  370;  see  also  McCormick  Harvesting  Machine  Co.  v. 
Aultman,  169  U. S.  606,  609  (1898)  (“[A  granted  patent] 
has  become  the  property  of  the  patentee”);  Brown  v.  Du- 
chesne,  19  How.  183,  197  (1857)  (“[T]he  rights  of  a  party 
under a patent are his private property”).  But those cases 
do not contradict our conclusion. 
  Patents convey only a specific form of property right—a 
public  franchise.    See  Pfaff,  525  U. S.,  at  63–64.    And 
patents  are  “entitled  to  protection  as  any  other  property, 
consisting of a franchise.”  Seymour, 11 Wall. at 533 (em-
phasis added).  As a public franchise, a patent can confer 
only  the  rights  that  “the  statute  prescribes.”    Gayler, 
supra,  at  494;  Wheaton  v.  Peters,  8  Pet.  591,  663–664 
(1834)  (noting  that  Congress  has  “the  power  to  prescribe 
the conditions on which such right shall be enjoyed”).  It is 
noteworthy  that  one  of  the  precedents  cited  by  Oil  States 
acknowledges  that  the  patentee’s  rights  are  “derived 
altogether”  from  statutes,  “are  to  be  regulated  and  meas-
ured by these laws, and cannot go beyond them.”  Brown, 
supra, at 195.2 
  One such regulation is inter partes review.  See Cuozzo, 
—————— 

2 This  Court  has  also  recognized  this  dynamic  for  state-issued  fran-
chises.  For instance, States often reserve the right to alter or revoke a 
corporate charter either “in the act of incorporation or in some general 
law  of  the  State  which  was  in  operation  at  the  time  the  charter  was 
granted.”    Pennsylvania  College  Cases,  13  Wall.  190,  214,  and  n. † 
(1872).    That  reservation  remains  effective  even  after  the  corporation 
comes  into  existence,  and  such  alterations  do  not  offend  the  Contracts 
Clause of Article I, §10.  See Pennsylvania College Cases, supra, at 212–
214; e.g., Miller v. State, 15 Wall. 478, 488–489 (1873).