Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/584/16-969/
Timestamp: 2019-12-06 20:24:10
Document Index: 208274682

Matched Legal Cases: ['§8', '§154', '§102', '§318', '§318', '§318', '§314', '§314', '§318', '§316', '§314', '§318', '§314', '§318', '§319']

SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu :: 584 U.S. ___ (2018) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 584 › SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu
SAS sought inter partes review (35 U.S.C. 311(a)) of ComplementSoft’s software patent, alleging that all 16 of the patent’s claims were unpatentable. The Patent Office instituted review on some of the claims and denied review on the rest. The Federal Circuit rejected SAS’s argument that section 318(a) required the Board to decide the patentability of every claim challenged in the petition. The Supreme Court reversed. When the Patent Office institutes an inter partes review, it must decide the patentability of all of the claims the petitioner has challenged. Section 318(a), which states that the Board “shall issue a final written decision with respect to the patentability of any patent claim challenged by the petitioner” is mandatory and comprehensive. The Director’s claimed “partial institution” power (37 CFR 42.108(a)) appears nowhere in the statutory text. The statute envisions an inter partes review guided by the initial petition. While section 314(a) invests the Director with discretion on whether to institute review, it does not invest him with discretion regarding what claims that review will encompass. The Director’s policy argument—that partial institution is efficient because it permits the Board to focus on the most promising challenges and avoid spending time and resources on others—is properly addressed to Congress.
When the Patent Office institutes an inter partes review, it must decide the patentability of all of the claims the petitioner has challenged.
SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.
No. 16–969. Argued November 27, 2017—Decided April 24, 2018
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” Congress long ago created a patent system granting inventors rights over the manufacture, sale, and use of their inventions. U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 8; see 35 U. S. C. §154(a)(1). To win a patent, an applicant must (among other things) file “claims” that describe the invention and establish to the satisfaction of the Patent Office the invention’s novelty and nonobviousness. See §§102, 103, 112(b), 131; Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, 579 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2016) (slip op., at 2–3).
We find that the plain text of §318(a) supplies a ready answer. It directs that “[i]f an inter partes review is instituted and not dismissed under this chapter, the [Board] shall issue a final written decision with respect to the patentability of any patent claim challenged by the petitioner . . . .” §318(a) (emphasis added). This directive is both mandatory and comprehensive. The word “shall” generally imposes a nondiscretionary duty. See Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U. S. 26, 35 (1998) . And the word “any” naturally carries “an expansive meaning.” United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1, 5 (1997). When used (as here) with a “singular noun in affirmative contexts,” the word “any” ordinarily “refer[s] to a member of a particular group or class without distinction or limitation” and in this way “impl[ies] every member of the class or group.” Oxford English Dictionary (3d ed., Mar. 2016), www.oed.com/view/Entry/8973 (OED) (emphasis added) (all Internet materials as last visited Apr. 20, 2018). So when §318(a) says the Board’s final written decision “shall” resolve the patentability of “any patent claim challenged by the petitioner,” it means the Board must address every claim the petitioner has challenged.
That would seem to make this an easy case. Where a statute’s language carries a plain meaning, the duty of an administrative agency is to follow its commands as written, not to supplant those commands with others it may prefer. Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U. S. 358, 369 (1946) . Because SAS challenged all 16 claims of ComplementSoft’s patent, the Board in its final written decision had to address the patentability of all 16 claims. Much as in the civil litigation system it mimics, in an inter partes review the petitioner is master of its complaint and normally entitled to judgment on all of the claims it raises, not just those the decisionmaker might wish to address.
To this the Director replies by pointing to another part of §314. Section 314(a) provides that the Director may not authorize an inter partes review unless he determines “there is a reasonable likelihood” the petitioner will prevail on “at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition.” The Director argues that this language requires him to “evaluate claims individually” and so must allow him to institute review on a claim-by-claim basis as well. Brief for Federal Respondent 28. But this language, if anything, suggests just the opposite. Section 314(a) does not require the Director to evaluate every claim individually. Instead, it simply requires him to decide whether the petitioner is likely to succeed on “at least 1” claim. Once that single claim threshold is satisfied, it doesn’t matter whether the petitioner is likely to prevail on any additional claims; the Director need not even consider any other claim before instituting review. Rather than contemplate claim-by-claim institution, then, the language anticipates a regime where a reasonable prospect of success on a single claim justifies review of all.
We just don’t see it. Whatever differences they might display, §314(a) and §318(a) both focus on the petitioner’s contentions and, given that, it’s difficult to see how they might be read to give the Director power to decide what claims are at issue. Particularly when there’s a much simpler and sounder explanation for the statute’s wording. As we’ve seen, a patent owner may move to “[c]ancel any challenged patent claim” during the course of an inter partes review, effectively conceding one part of a petitioner’s challenge. §316(d)(1)(A). Naturally, then, the claims challenged “in the petition” will not always survive to the end of the case; some may drop out thanks to the patent owner’s actions. And in that light it is plain enough why Congress provided that only claims still challenged “by the petitioner” at the litigation’s end must be addressed in the Board’s final written decision. The statute’s own winnowing mechanism fully explains why Congress adopted slightly different language in §314(a) and §318(a). We need not and will not invent an atextual explanation for Congress’s drafting choices when the statute’s own terms supply an answer. See United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 240 –241 (1989) (“[A]s long as the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent, there generally is no need for a court to inquire beyond the plain language of the statute”).
Moving past the statute’s text and context, the Director attempts a policy argument. He tells us that partial institution is efficient because it permits the Board to focus on the most promising challenges and avoid spending time and resources on others. Brief for Federal Respondent 35–36; see also post, at 1 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); post, at 7–8 (Breyer, J., dissenting). SAS responds that all patent challenges usually end up being litigated somewhere, and that partial institution creates inefficiency by requiring the parties to litigate in two places instead of one—the Board for claims the Director chooses to entertain and a federal court for claims he refuses. Indeed, SAS notes, the government itself once took the same view, arguing that partial institution “ ‘undermine[s] the Congressional efficiency goal’ ” for this very reason. Brief for Petitioner 30. Each side offers plausible reasons why its approach might make for the more efficient policy. But who should win that debate isn’t our call to make. Policy arguments are properly addressed to Congress, not this Court. It is Congress’s job to enact policy and it is this Court’s job to follow the policy Congress has prescribed. And whatever its virtues or vices, Congress’s prescribed policy here is clear: the petitioner in an inter partes review is entitled to a decision on all the claims it has challenged.[1]
But whether Chevron should remain is a question we may leave for another day. Even under Chevron, we owe an agency’s interpretation of the law no deference unless, after “employing traditional tools of statutory construction,” we find ourselves unable to discern Congress’s meaning. 467 U. S., at 843, n. 9. And after applying traditional tools of interpretation here, we are left with no uncertainty that could warrant deference. The statutory provisions before us deliver unmistakable commands. The statute hinges inter partes review on the filing of a petition challenging specific patent claims; it makes the petition the centerpiece of the proceeding both before and after institution; and it requires the Board’s final written decision to address every claim the petitioner presents for review. There is no room in this scheme for a wholly unmentioned “partial institution” power that lets the Director select only some challenged claims for decision. The Director may (today) think his approach makes for better policy, but policy considerations cannot create an ambiguity when the words on the page are clear. See SEC v. Sloan, 436 U. S. 103, 116 –117 (1978). Neither may we defer to an agency official’s preferences because we imagine some “hypothetical reasonable legislator” would have favored that approach. Post, at 9 (Breyer, J., dissenting). Our duty is to give effect to the text that 535 actual legislators (plus one President) enacted into law.
1 Justice Ginsburg suggests the Director might yet avoid this command by refusing to review a petition he thinks too broad while signaling his willingness to entertain one more tailored to his sympathies. Post, at 1 (dissenting opinion). We have no occasion today to consider whether this stratagem is consistent with the statute’s demands. See Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, 579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 11) (noting that courts may invalidate “ ‘shenanigans’ ” by the Director that are “outside [his] statutory limits”); CAB v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 367 U. S. 316, 328 (1961) (questioning an agency’s “power to do indirectly what it cannot do directly”). But even assuming (without granting) the law would tolerate this tactic, it would show only that a lawful means exists for the Director to achieve his policy aims—not that he “should be allowed to improvise on the powers granted by Congress” by devising an extralegal path to the same goal. Id., at 330. That an agency’s improvisation might be thought by some more expedient than what the law allows, post, at 1, does nothing to commend it either, for lawful ends do not justify unlawful means.
I am not helped by examining, as the majority examines, what Congress might have done had it used other language. Ante, at 6–8. The majority points out that had Congress meant anything other than “challenged in the petition,” it might have said so more clearly. Ibid. But similarly, if Congress had meant “challenged in the petition,” it might have used the words “in the petition.” After all, it used those very words only four sections earlier. See §314(a) (referring to “claims challenged in the petition”). This argument, like many such arguments, is a wash.
Neither am I helped by analogizing the inter partes review proceeding to civil litigation. Cf. ante, at 2–3, 5. That is because, as this Court said in Cuozzo, inter partes review is a “hybrid proceeding.” 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 16). It has some adversarial characteristics, but “in other significant respects, inter partes review is less like a judicial proceeding and more like a specialized agency proceeding.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 15). Its purposes are not limited to “helping resolve concrete patent-related disputes among parties,” but extend to “reexamin[ing] . . . an earlier administrative grant of a patent” and “protect[ing] the public’s ‘paramount interest in seeing that patent monopolies . . . are kept within their legitimate scope.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Precision Instrument Mfg. Co. v. Automotive Maintenance Machinery Co., 324 U. S. 806, 816 (1945) ; ellipsis in original); see also Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, ___ U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018) (slip op., at 8–9).
More than that, to read §318(a) as requiring a “final written decision” in respect to those 15 perhaps frivolous challenges would seem to lead to judicial review of the Board’s decision about those frivolous challenges. After all, §319 of the statute says that a “party dissatisfied with the final written decision of the [Board] under section 318(a),” the provision before us, “may appeal the decision” to the Federal Circuit. And the majority’s interpretation is anomalous in that it is difficult to imagine why Congress, with one hand, would make the agency’s weeding-out decision nonreviewable, see Cuozzo, supra, at ___–___ (slip op., at 11–12), yet at the same time would make the decision reviewable via the requirement that the Board issue a “final written” appealable “decision” with respect to that weeded-out challenge.
January 31, 2017 Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 6, 2017)
February 28, 2017 Order extending time to file response to petition to and including April 5, 2017.
April 5, 2017 Brief of Federal Respondents in opposition filed.
April 17, 2017 Reply of petitioner SAS Institute Inc. filed.
April 19, 2017 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 11, 2017.
May 15, 2017 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 18, 2017.
May 22, 2017 Petition GRANTED.
June 22, 2017 The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including July 20, 2017.
June 22, 2017 The time to file respondents' brief on the merits is extended to and including September 5, 2017.
July 20, 2017 Joint appendix filed. (2 Volumes) (Statement of costs filed)
July 20, 2017 Brief of petitioner SAS Institute Inc. filed.
July 20, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Intellectual Property Owners Association filed.
September 5, 2017 Brief of Federal Respondent filed.
September 5, 2017 Brief of respondent ComplementSoft, LLC filed.
September 12, 2017 Motion for divided argument filed by respondent ComplementSoft, LLC.
September 12, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Houston Intellectual Property Law Association filed.
October 5, 2017 Reply of petitioner SAS Institute Inc. filed.
October 6, 2017 SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Monday, November 27, 2017
October 10, 2017 Motion for divided argument filed by respondent DENIED.
October 18, 2017 Record requested from the U.S.C.A. Federal Circuit.
October 18, 2017 Record received from the U.S.C.A. Federal Circuit is electronic and located on PACER.
November 27, 2017 Argued. For petitioner: Gregory A. Castanias, Washington, D. C. For respondents: Jonathan C. Bond, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
April 24, 2018 Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg and Sotomayor, JJ., joined, and in which Kagan, J., joined except as to Part III-A.
May 29, 2018 JUDGMENT ISSUED.
Oral Argument - November 27, 2017
SAS Institute, Inc. v. ComplementSoft, LLC., No. 15-1346 (Fed. Cir. Jun. 10, 2016)
ComplementSoft’s patent, issued in 2006, is directed to an “Integrated Development Environment for generating and maintaining source code . . . in particular, programmed in data manipulation languages,” and characterizes a development environment as comprising a set of software tools allowing users to develop, edit, and debug software for a particular programming language or set of programming languages. The contemplated development environment utilizes a graphical user interface and is particularly designed for data manipulation languages, including SAS®, which is developed by SAS. On SAS's petition for inter partes review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found all of the instituted claims, except for claim 4, unpatentable in view of prior art. The Federal Circuit agreed on the challenged constructions and determined that the Board did not need to address claims it did not institute. The court vacated the determination that claim 4 was patentable and remanded for the parties to address a new construction that the Board adopted in its final decision after previously interpreting the claim differently. The court noted that it is uncertain whether SAS will be able to show unpatentability of claim 4 even under the construction of “graphical representations of data flows” that the Board adopted and that it agreed with.
Joseph MatalAndrei Iancu, Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.