Court Rejects Trio of Tech Challenges to Patent Office Powers

The Federal Circuit Tuesday rebuffed three more challenges to changes implemented by the Trump administration that make it harder to challenge the validity of patents at a US Patent and Trademark Office tribunal.

The petitions from Intel Corp., Kangxi Communications Technologies Co., and Tessell Inc. each argued new factors used to block access to inter partes review proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board were both beyond the statutory authority of the agency’s director and unconstitutional.

The first of the three orders was reflective of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s approach to the actions, ...