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12 

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

C 
  Oil  States  and  the  dissent  contend  that  inter  partes 
review violates the “general” principle that “Congress may 
not ‘withdraw from judicial cognizance any matter which, 
from its nature, is the subject of a suit at the common law, 
or in equity, or admiralty.’ ”  Stern, 564 U. S., at 484 (quot-
ing  Murray’s  Lessee,  18  How.,  at  284).    They  argue  that 
this  is  so  because  patent  validity  was  often  decided  in 
English courts of law in the 18th century.  For example, if 
a  patent  owner  brought  an  infringement  action,  the  de-
fendant  could  challenge  the  validity  of  the  patent  as  an 
affirmative defense.  See Lemley, Why Do Juries Decide If 
Patents Are Valid? 99 Va. L. Rev. 1673, 1682, 1685–1686, 
and  n. 52  (2013).    Or,  an  individual  could  challenge  the 
validity  of  a  patent  by  filing  a  writ  of  scire  facias  in  the 
Court  of  Chancery,  which  would  sit  as  a  law  court  when 
adjudicating  the  writ.    See  id.,  at  1683–1685,  and  n. 44; 
Bottomley, Patent Cases in the Court of Chancery, 1714–
58, 35 J. Legal Hist. 27, 36–37, 41–43 (2014). 
  But  this  history  does  not  establish  that  patent  validity 
is  a  matter  that,  “from  its  nature,”  must  be  decided  by  a 
court.    Stern,  supra,  at  484  (quoting  Murray’s  Lessee, 
supra,  at  284).    The  aforementioned  proceedings  were 
between private parties.  But there was another means of 

—————— 

Patent  Act  of  1870.    See  169  U. S.,  at  609–610.    Modern  invention 
patents, by contrast, are meaningfully different from land patents.  The 
land-patent  cases  invoked  by  the  dissent  involved  a  “transaction  [in 
which]  ‘all  authority  or  control’  over  the  lands  has  passed  from  ‘the 
Executive  Department.’ ”    Boesche  v.  Udall,  373  U. S.  472,  477  (1963) 
(quoting Moore v. Robbins, 96 U. S. 530, 533 (1878)).  Their holdings do 
not apply when “the Government continues to possess some measure of 
control over” the right in question.  Boesche, 373 U. S., at 477; see id., 
at  477–478  (affirming  administrative  cancellations  of  public-land 
leases).  And that is true of modern invention patents under the current 
Patent  Act,  which  gives  the  PTO  continuing  authority  to  review  and 
potentially cancel patents after they are issued.  See 35 U. S. C. §§261, 
311–319.