U.S. Sup. Ct.;
15-446
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act creates an agency procedure called “inter partes review” that allows a third party to ask the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine the claims in an already-issued patent and to cancel any claim that the agency finds to be unpatentable in light of prior art. The Act, as relevant here, provides that the Patent Office’s decision “whether to institute an inter partes review … shall be final and non-appealable,” 35 U. S. C. §314(d), and grants the Patent Office authority to issue “regulations … establishing and governing inter partes review,” §316(a)(4). A Patent Office regulation issued pursuant to that authority provides that, during inter partes review, a patent claim “shall be given its broadest reasonable construction in light of the specification of the patent in which it appears.” 37 CFR §42.100(b).
