Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 11

8 

THRYV, INC. v. CLICK-TO-CALL TECHNOLOGIES, LP 

Opinion of the Court 

1373 (“§315(b) controls the Director’s authority to institute 
[inter partes review]”).

Because §315(b) expressly governs institution and noth-
ing more, a contention that a petition fails under §315(b) is 
a contention that the agency should have refused “to insti-
tute an inter partes review.”  §314(d).  A challenge to a pe-
tition’s  timeliness  under  §315(b)  thus  raises  “an  ordinary 
dispute  about  the  application  of ”  an  institution-related 
statute.  Cuozzo, 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7).  In this 
case  as  in  Cuozzo,  therefore,  §314(d)  overcomes  the  pre-
sumption favoring judicial review.4 

C 
The AIA’s purpose and design strongly reinforce our con-
clusion.  By  providing  for  inter  partes  review,  Congress, 
concerned  about  overpatenting  and  its  diminishment  of 
competition,  sought  to  weed  out  bad  patent  claims  effi-
ciently.  See id., at ___ (slip op., at 8); H. R. Rep. No. 112–
98, pt. 1, p. 40 (2011) (“The legislation is designed to estab-
lish  a  more  efficient  and  streamlined  patent  system  that
will  improve  patent  quality  and  limit  unnecessary  and 
counterproductive litigation costs.”).5 

—————— 

4 We  do  not  decide  whether  mandamus  would  be  available  in  an  ex-
traordinary case.  Cf. Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, 579 U. S. 
___, ___–___, n. 5 (2016) (ALITO, J., concurring in part and dissenting in 
part) (slip op., at 5–6, n. 5). 

5 The dissent acknowledges that “Congress authorized inter partes re-
view to encourage further scrutiny of already issued patents.”  Post, at 
14.  Yet the dissent, despite the Court’s decision upholding the constitu-
tionality  of  such review  in Oil  States  Energy  Services, LLC  v.  Greene’s 
Energy Group, LLC, 584 U. S. ___ (2018), appears ultimately to urge that 
Congress lacks authority to permit second looks.  Patents are property, 
the  dissent  several  times  repeats,  and  Congress  has  no  prerogative  to 
allow “property-taking-by-bureaucracy.”  Post, at 1, 18–21.  But see Oil 
States, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (“patents are public franchises”
(internal  quotation  marks  omitted)).    The  second  look  Congress  put in 
place is assigned to the very same bureaucracy that granted the patent
in  the  first  place.    Why  should  that  bureaucracy  be  trusted  to  give  an