Federal Circuit Tosses Challenges to Patent Office Procedure (1)

The Federal Circuit dismissed three tech-industry challenges to Trump administration moves limiting access to a tribunal where companies can contest the validity of patents asserted against them.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has considerable discretion in deciding whether to institute validity reviews at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Thursday in a precedential decision rejecting Motorola Solutions Inc.‘s mandamus petition. The opinion, written by Senior Judge Richard Linn, called Motorola’s bid “nothing but an attempted end run” around a provision in the Patent Act barring appeals from such ...