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Page Number: 69.0

22 

UNITED STATES v. ARTHREX, INC. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

judge the Constitution identifies.  See Art. II, §2, cl. 2.  So, 
if inferior officers are all executive officers other than those 
with special appointment processes laid out in the Consti-
tution, then administrative patent judges squarely fit. 

Administrative patent judges also fall on the inferior-
officer side of the inferior-principal divide.  It is agreed that
administrative patent judges are not the heads of any de-
partment.  See ante, at 8; Brief for Arthrex, Inc., 5–6 (noting 
that the Secretary of Commerce is the relevant “department 
head”).  Thus,  to  the  extent  a  “principal  officer  . . .  is  the 
equivalent of the head of department,” administrative pa-
tent judges are not one.  Germaine, 99 U. S., at 511. 

And under the Madisonian tripartite system, administra-
tive patent judges would still be inferior.  These judges are
not heads of departments.  Nor are they “superior officers.”
An  administrative  patent  judge  is  not  “[h]igher”  than  or
“greater in dignity or excellence” to other officers inferior to
him.  2 Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language (de-
fining “Superiour”).  Tellingly, neither respondent nor the 
majority identify a single officer lower in rank or subordi-
nate to administrative patent judges.  Surely if “[w]hether 
one is an ‘inferior’ officer depends on whether he has a su-
perior,” then whether one is a superior officer depends on 
whether he has an inferior.  Edmond, 520 U. S., at 662; see 
also Morrison, 487 U. S., at 720 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“Of 
course one is not a ‘superior officer’ without some supervi-
sory responsibility”).  In contrast, an administrative patent 
judge is lower in rank and subordinate to both the Director 
and the Secretary. 

* 

* 

* 
To be clear, I do not purport to have exhausted all con-
temporaneous  debates,  sources,  and  writings.    Perhaps 
there is some reason to believe that the inherent nature of 
an inferior officer requires that all of their decisions be di-
rectly  appealable  to  a  Senate-confirmed  executive  officer.