Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf
Page Number: 31

4 

UNITED STATES v. ARTHREX, INC. 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

as  here,  administrative  patent  judges  (APJs)—sit  on  a 
panel to decide whether to cancel a patent.  §6(c).  After the 
three-member  panel  issues  its  decision,  a  party  may  seek 
rehearing  from  another  three-member  panel.  Ibid.    But  
only a PTAB panel—and no other official within the Execu-
tive  Branch—may  grant  rehearing.    Ibid.   If  that  fails,  a 
losing party’s only recourse is to seek judicial review in the 
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which reviews the 
PTAB’s  factual  findings  under  the  deferential  substantial
evidence  standard  of  review.  See  §319;  Oil  States,  584 
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4).

Under this statutory arrangement, APJs are executive of-
ficers accountable to no one else in the Executive Branch. 
A panel of bureaucrats wields unreviewable power to take 
vested  property  rights.    This  design  may  hold  its  ad-
vantages for some.  Often enough, the Director of the Patent 
and Trademark Office and the President may be happy to
wash their hands of these decisions.  But by breaking the
chain of dependence, the statutory scheme denies individu-
als the right to be subjected only to lawful exercises of ex-
ecutive power that can ultimately be controlled by a Presi-
dent  accountable  to  “the  supreme  body,  namely, . . .  the 
people.” 

* 

The real question here concerns what to do about it.  In 
Part III of its opinion, the Court invokes severability doc-
trine.  Ante, at 19–22.  It “sever[s]” Congress’s statutory di-
rection that PTAB decisions may not be reviewed by the Di-
rector of the Patent Office—in that way reconnecting APJs
to the chain of command and subjecting their decisions to a
superior who is, in turn, ultimately accountable to the Pres-
ident.  See ibid. 

I don’t question that we might proceed this way in some 
cases.  Faced with an application of a statute that violates 
the Constitution, a court might look to the text of the law in