Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-712_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 30

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

9 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

patents  at  the  federal  level  to  courts  alone.    The  only 
apparent  exception  to  this  rule  cited  to  us  was  a  4  year 
period  when  foreign  patentees  had  to  “work”  or  commer-
cialize  their  patents  or  risk  having  them  revoked.  
Hovenkamp, The Emergence of Classical American Patent 
Law,  58  Ariz.  L.  Rev.  263,  283–284  (2016).    And  the  fact 
that for almost 200 years “earlier Congresses avoided use 
of  [a]  highly  attractive”—and  surely  more  efficient—
means  for  extinguishing  patents  should  serve  as  good 
“reason to believe that the power was thought not to exist” 
at  the  time  of  the  founding.    Printz  v.  United  States,  521 
U. S. 898, 905 (1997). 
  One more episode still underscores the point.  When the 
Executive  sought  to  claim  the  right  to  cancel  a  patent  in 
the 1800s, this Court firmly rebuffed the effort.  The Court 
explained: 

“It has been settled by repeated decisions of this court 
that  when  a  patent  has  [been  issued  by]  the  Patent 
Office,  it  has  passed  beyond  the  control  and  jurisdic-
tion of that office, and is not subject to be revoked or 
cancelled by the President, or any other officer of the 
Government.    It  has  become  the  property  of  the  pa-
tentee,  and  as  such  is  entitled  to  the  same  legal  pro-
tection  as  other  property.”    McCormick  Harvesting 
Machine  Co.  v.  Aultman,  169  U. S.  606,  608–609 
(1898) (citations omitted). 

As  a  result,  the  Court  held,  “[t]he  only  authority  compe-
tent to set a patent aside, or to annul it, or to correct it for 
any reason whatever, is vested in the courts of the United 
States,  and  not  in  the  department  which  issued  the  pat- 
ent.”  Id., at 609. 
  The Court today replies that McCormick sought only to 
interpret  certain  statutes  then  in  force,  not  the  Constitu-
tion.  Ante, at 11, and n. 3.  But this much is hard to see.  
Allowing the Executive to withdraw a patent, McCormick