Source: https://www.oblon.com/publications/patent-and-trademark-jurisdiction-of-the-court-of-customs-and-patent-appeals-part-ii-conclusion/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 03:51:20+00:00

Document:
Journal of Patent Office Society (1973) volume 55, pages 184-202, and the George Washington Law Review (1972), volume 416.
When Is The Board Actually The Commissioner?
When Is One Board Actually Another Board?
When Is The Board Not A Board At All?
When Is The Commissioner Not The Commissioner?
It may be hoped that the result in James will prove an isolated aberration, despite the approval which it received from respected commentators.73 Apparently, the rule of Sundback has been seldom applied, presumably because the Commissioner has rarely delegated to the board portions of his statutory, quasi-judicial powers on petitionable matters. However, the boards (and the CCPA, as exemplified by the Searles case) are continually applying the rules of the Patent Office, promulgated under the authority of the Commissioner. To deprive the CCPA of its jurisdiction to review their applications of these rules --even when their actions are taken "only under authority of the rules" and are not, strictly speaking, a part of their review of what the examiner has done74 -- would diminish seriously the scope of its jurisdiction.
Theoretically, the division of functions between the Board of Patent Interferences and the Board of Appeals is sharp -- the former is to decide questions of priority and questions ancillary thereto,75 and the latter is to decide questions of patentability and, at the least, questions "logically related" thereto.76 Notwithstanding this theoretical division of authority, the possibility exists that one board might decide an issue which the CCPA would later determine to have been within the exclusive jurisdiction of the other board. Should this happen, the CCPA will be faced with the difficult question of whether to review the matter. There are two ways in which the court might resolve the issue. First, it could find that the particular board decision was ultra vires for that board and therefore declare the whole proceeding void. The CCPA would thus lack jurisdiction to review whatever decision the board made. Alternatively, the court could rule prospectively that decisions on that particular issue should be made by the other board, but nevertheless assume jurisdiction to review the decision on the theory that the error did not affect substantial rights, particularly since the erring board's decision was still reviewable by the CCPA. The latter alternative, however, would seem to ignore the parties' right to have the issue decided in the first instance by the board having specialized expertise over the issues involved. Although the CCPA has not yet been faced with this problem, it may soon be. In Moore v. McGrew77 the Board of Patent Interferences stated that the determination of whether or not two applications or an application and a patent interfere in fact "involves . . . a question of patentability, which, while not ancillary to priority, is property treated by the Board of Patent Interferences."78 The board thereafter decided that an "interference in fact" did exist between McGrew's patent and Moore's application and awarded priority to McGrew.
It may be debated whether, in general, the question of the existence of an interference in fact between the claims of two applications, or between the claims of an application and the claims of a patent, is solely one of patentability or is one ancillary to priority. This is, after all, an issue fundamental to all interference proceedings in which the count differs from one or more of the corresponding claims.79 Brailsford v. Lavet,80 the leading modern case on the subject, appears to assume that the CCPA has jurisdiction over appeals on the issue of the existence of an interference in fact, although the court does not seem to have specifically considered this issue.81 The only consideration militating against deciding the issue in the context of an interference is the fact that such determinations are much closer conceptually to the usual work of the Board of Appeals (determining anticipation and obviousness) than it is to the usual work of the Board of Patent Interferences (determining priority and the existence of support for the counts in the parties' disclosure).
The question of interference law raised by Moore is far beyond the scope of this article.88 For present purposes, it is sufficient to ask whether, if such a case is appealed and if the court does determine that the Board of Patent Interferences decided a question of patentability not ancillary to priority, the court will then review the board's decision. The CCPA has countenanced the Commissioner's delegation of some of his quasi-judicial authority to one of the boards,89 but is should not approve transfer by the Commissioner of a portion of one board's statutory authority to another.90 To do so would defeat the whole purpose of having boards with different, specialized expertise, a consideration which is not present when the Commissioner delegates some of his authority to a board which he has, presumably, concluded has specialized expertise particularly suiting it to decide the matters delegated.
This question was raised in the famous case of In re Wiechert91 but not reached by a majority of the court.
They disagreed, however, on the legality of the composition of the board, Judge Almond finding it to have been legal and therefore concurring with the majority and Judge Smith finding it to have been illegal and therefore voting to dismiss the appeal.
The dissenting judges would seem to be on firm ground in arguing that no acts of the parties, including their express agreement that the court did have jurisdiction over the appeal, can confer jurisdiction on the court and that the court should always be ready to dismiss an appeal for want of jurisdiction, notwithstanding the parties' failure to raise the question either below or on appeal.102 It should not be forgotten, however, that the majority did intimate a view on the validity of the board's decision despite its contention that the matter was not properly before it. The majority indicated that an invalid appointment would not render the board's decision nugatory. Thus, even the majority probably would not have been prepared to render an opinion in an appeal to it from, say, the decision of a board of arbitrators, chosen by the parties to arbitrate an expected interference before either one had filed his application, whether or not either party challenged the court's jurisdiction.
The above example, while absurd, even outrageous, is given to emphasize that the case before the CCPA in Wiechert was neither absurd nor outrageous. In fact, the two CCPA judges who reached the issue split as to the board's legality, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, when later presented with the same issue in an action brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, held the board to have been legally constituted.103 Thus, Weichert might not be followed in a more egregious case. For example, an attempt by the Commissioner to appoint a panel consisting of three acting Examiners-in-Chief, all three of the grade of Primary Examiner, would be so clearly contrary to any conceivably tenable interpretation of 35 U.S.C. § 7104 that the court might well ignore the Wiechert doctrine.
When Is The Commission Not the Commissioner?
Where did the court get this authority to review decisions of the Commissioner in patent cases, authority which it had specifically disavowed in Sundback?117 In James,118Judge Rich, author of the court's opinion in both Vandenberg v. Reynolds cases, explained that the court had "reviewed the Commissioner's decision [in Vandenberg] because we regarded it as ancillary to priority."119 While that explains why Patent Office decisions whether to strike an application under Rule 56 are reviewable in the CCPA, it does not explain why, in the Patent Office, they should be made "in the first instance" by the Commissioner rather than by the Board of Patent Interferences.120 Certainly 28 U.S.C. § 1542121 does not hint at any such power. A better solution, in this writer's opinion, would have been to have held that questions of whether or not to strike applications under Rule 56 should be decided "in the first instance" by the Board of Patent Interferences, because ancillary to priority.122 The CCPA's jurisdiction over appeals from that decision would then follow in the normal course, whereas at present it constitutes an anomaly inexplicable in terms of the court's statutory jurisdiction.
The traditional separation of Patent Office decisions into "petitionable" decisions, reviewable only in the federal district courts, and "appealable" decisions, reviewable in either the CCPA or the courts of the District of Columbia, leads to some unique and highly perplexing problems of jurisdiction. The CCPA has certainly not solved all the problems inherent in the divided review structure, nor are even its recent pronouncements on the subject easily reconcilable. However, the cases discussed in the body of this article do offer the basis for making a few predictions.
First, tradition is of enormous importance in this field, and the CCPA is likely to tolerate a few intellectual anomalies rather than depart from established practices concerning routine and recurring problems of jurisdiction. Second, if the problem is one of novel impression, the CCPA is likely to find jurisdiction if the challenged Patent Office decision required expertise in statutory patent or trademark law, was made by an entity from which appeals may be taken in that kind of case, and was made in the course of a clearly appealable decision. Third, the more "procedural" the decision and the more connected with the legitimate interest of the Patent Office in self regulation, free of outside interference, the less likely the CCPA is to review the Patent Office decision or to give the appellant relief if it does. Fourth, if the issue is "properly presented," the court will probably hold that an otherwise appealable Patent Office decision made by the wrong board or by the Commissioner, although within the statutory jurisdiction of one of the boards, was therefore void and unreviewable by the CCPA. Similarly, the court will probably hold that an otherwise appealable decision made by an illegally constituted board or panel of a board, or by a purported delegate of the Commissioner who is for some reason not a proper repository for a delegation of the Commissioner's authority, was therefore void and unreviewable by the CCPA. However, the court will probably continue to display great reluctance to find these issues to have been properly presented. Beyond these, we must simply wait for developments.
Reprinted with permission. Previously published in the Journal of Patent Office Society (1973) volume 55, pages 184-202, and the George Washington Law Review (1972), volume 416.
*.This article is a slightly updated version of an article which previously appeared at 40 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 416 (1972). It is reprinted with permission.
**.The author is a member of the New York and District of Columbia Bars, and is presently associated with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Sughrue, Rothwell, Mion, Zinn and MacPeak. At the time this article was first written the author was Technical Advisor to the Hon. Giles S. Rich, Associate Judge of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. However, the views expressed herein are the author's own and are not necessarily shared by any member of the court.
An earlier version of this article was submitted to Professor Donald R. Dunner of the National Law Center, George Washington University, in satisfaction of course requirements. The author is indebtted to Professor Dunner and to Professor Robert E. Park, also of the National Law Center, for their suggestion for improvements in the first draft.
.In re Marriott-Hot Shoppes, 411 F.2d 1025, 162 U.S.P.Q. 106 (C.C.P.A. 1969). See also Myers v. Feigelman, 455 F.2d 596, 172 USPQ 580 (C.C.P.A. 1972).
.47 F.2d 378, 8 U.S.P.Q. 220 (C.C.P.A. 1931).
Whenever an application is made for a patent which, in the opinion of the Commissioner, would interfere with any pending application, or with any unexpired patent, he shall give notice thereof to the applicants, or applicant and patentee, as the case may be.
.47 F.2d at 380, 8 U.S.P.Q. at 222.
.48 F.2d 938, 9 U.S.P.Q. 421 (C.C.P.A. 1931). See also Tenney v Nordmeyer, 94 F.2d 396, 36 U.S.P.Q. 346 (C.C.P.A. 1935) and the strange case of Spatafora v. Zaiger, 69 F.2d 118, 20 U.S.P.Q. 316 (C.C.P.A. 1934) (dissolution of three-way interference as to one party on the ground that he "was not the first inventor" held not appealable). Spatafora seems to extend Sunback unreasonably. Even assuming that only the Commissioner and his delegates have authority to dissolve an interference on grounds unrelated to priority (such as unpatentability of the subject matter in view of the prior art, the ground in Sunback), an assumption which now seems questionable as a matter of substantive law, see note 81 infra and accompanying text, the board's action in Spatafora was, in essence, a determination of non-priority and should have been appealable as such.
.432 F.2d 473, 167 U.S.P.Q. 403 (C.C.P.A. 1970), discussed in Pat. L. Persp. § A.12-1 (1970 Dev.).
.Rule 192 (b) of the Rules of Practice in Patent Cases, 37 C.F.R § 1.192(b) (1971) provides that "[o]n failure to file the brief, accompanied by the requisite fee, within the time allowed, the appeal shall stand dismissed."
.432 F.2d at 476, 167 U.S.P.Q. at 405.
.Id. at 477, 167 U.S.P.Q. at 406. See 35 U.S.C. § 6 (1970).
.432 F.2d at 477, 167 U.S.P.Q. at 406.
.422 F.2d 431, 164 U.S.P.Q. 623 (C.C.P.A. 1970), discussed in Pat. L. Persp. § A.12-3 (1970 Dev.).
.422 F.2d at 435, 164 U.S.P.Q. at 626.

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