Source: https://www.hdp.com/blog/2018/01/08/directors-time-bar-determinations-under-%C2%A7-315b-are-not-exempt-from-judicial-review/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 14:11:06+00:00

Document:
In Wi-Fi One, LLC v. Broadcom Corp., [2015-1945, 2015-1946] (January 8, 2018) the Federal Circuit, en banc, held that the bar on judicial review of institution decisions in 35 U.S.C. §314(d) does not apply to time-bar determinations made under § 315(b), overruling Achates Reference Publishing, Inc. v. Apple Inc., 803 F.3d 652, 658 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
Wi-Fi argued that the Director lacked authority to institute IPRs under §315(b) because petitioner Broadcom was in privity with the defendants that the prior owner of the patents (Ericsson) served with an infringement complaint more than a year before Broadcom filed the IPRs. The Board nonetheless instituted the IPRs, finding that Wi-Fi had not shown that Broadcom was in privity with the defendants in the prior litigation. In its Final Written Decision, the challenged claims were found unpatentable.
The majority started its analysis with the the “strong presumption” favoring judicial review of administrative actions, including the Director’s IPR institution decisions. In view of this strong presumption, the Federal Circuit said it would abdicate judicial review only when Congress provides a “clear and convincing” indication that it intends to prohibit review. The Federal Circuit found no clear and convincing indication in the specific statutory language in the AIA, the specific legislative history of the AIA, or the statutory scheme as a whole that demonstrates Congress’s intent to bar judicial review of § 315(b) time-bar determinations.
The Federal Circuit said that §315(b), which controls the Director’s authority to institute IPR that is unrelated to the Director’s preliminary patentability assessment or the Director’s discretion not to initiate an IPR even if the threshold “reasonable likelihood” is present. Because §314(a) does not mention the time-bar, the PTO’s position that the time-bar determination is unreviewable runs counter to the principle, as reflected in Cuozzo, that favors reading the statute to comport with, not depart from, familiar approaches to comparable issues. The majority found this reading was consistent with the overall statutory scheme as understood through the lens of Cuozzo’s directive to examine the statutory scheme in terms of what is “closely related” to the § 314(a) determination.
Moreover, the Federal Circuit observed that timely filing of a petition under § 315(b) is a condition precedent to the Director’s authority to act, and said that enforcing statutory limits on an agency’s authority to act is precisely the type of issue that courts have historically reviewed.

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