Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

15 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

there was ambiguous about mixed questions of law and fact: 
Were these (reviewable) questions of law, or (unreviewable) 
determinations of fact?  Because the statute could be inter-
preted either way, this Court held, the presumption of re-
viewability  preserved  the  aliens’  ability  to  argue  mixed 
questions  on  appeal.  Today,  the  textual  arguments  for
shielding  the  agency’s  decision  from  review  are  even 
weaker, and the same presumption that preserved judicial
review for felons seeking discretionary relief from removal 
should do no less work for patent holders seeking to defend
their inventions. 

IV 

Even if the statute’s plain language and the presumption 
in favor of review dictate a ruling against it, Thryv finishes 
by suggesting we must ignore all that and rule for it anyway 
because  precedent  commands  it.  Maybe  our  precedent  is
wrong, the company says, but it binds us all the same.

In  particular,  Thryv  points  us  to  Cuozzo.  There,  the 
Court  suggested  that  §314(d)  could  preclude  review  in 
cases:  (1) where a litigant challenges the Director’s reason-
able likelihood of success determination under §314(a), or 
(2) where a litigant “grounds its claim in a statute closely 
related  to  that  decision  to  institute  inter  partes  review.”
579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12).  That first path is faithful
to the plain language of §314(d).  The second appears no-
where in the statute but is, instead, a product of the judicial 
imagination.  Still,  Thryv  says,  we  must  follow  that  path 
wherever  it  leads  and,  because  §315(b)  decisions  are 
“closely  related”  to  §314(a)  decisions,  we  shouldn’t  review 
them. 

But Cuozzo hardly held so much.  In fact, Cuozzo had no 
need to explore the second path it imagined, for it quickly 
concluded that the argument before it was “little more than 
a challenge to the Patent Office’s conclusion under §314(a),”