Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-801_o758.pdf
Page Number: 12.0

10 

PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

all other expenses of the Patent Office, and to be called the 
patent fund”).  That salaries of PTO employees might have 
qualified as an “expense” of the agency, however, does not 
mean that they are an “expense” of a §145 proceeding.  Nei-
ther has the PTO, until this litigation, sought its attorney’s 
fees under §145.  That the agency has managed to pay its
attorneys  consistently  suggests  that  financial  necessity
does not require reading §145 to shift fees, either. 

In later years, when Congress intended to provide for at-
torney’s fees in the Patent Act, it stated so explicitly.  See, 
e.g., 35 U. S. C. §285 (“The court in exceptional cases may 
award  reasonable  attorney  fees  to  the  prevailing  party”);
§271(e)(4)  (“[A]  court  may  award  attorney  fees  under  sec-
tion 285”); §273(f ) (same); §296(b) (same); §297(b)(1) (“Any 
customer . . . who is found by a court to have been injured 
by any material false or fraudulent statement . . . may re-
cover  . . .  reasonable  costs  and  attorneys’  fees”).  Because 
Congress  failed  to  make  its  intention  similarly  clear  in 
§145, the Court will not read the statute to “contravene fun-
damental  precepts  of  the  common  law.”  United  States  v. 
Rodgers, 461 U. S. 677, 716 (1983). 

The history of the Patent Act thus reaffirms the Court’s
view that the statute does not specifically or explicitly au-
thorize  the  PTO  to  recoup  its  lawyers’  or  paralegals’ 
pro rata salaries in §145 civil actions. 

* 

* 
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the PTO can-
not recover the pro rata salaries of its legal personnel under
§145 and therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Ap-
peals for the Federal Circuit. 

* 

It is so ordered.