Supreme Court Wraps Up Its Patent Docket

In its final patent–related opinion of the term, the Supreme Court answered a fairly obscure question in Kappos v. Hyatt: what standard should the district court apply in ruling on an appeal from the Patent Office’s denial of a patent application. Under 35 U.S.C. § 145, a disappointed patent applicant can take his or her appeal to the federal district court (as opposed to following the well–trodden path of the administrative appeal). If an applicant follows the road rarely taken to the district court, the applicant has the chance to introduce new evidence not presented to the Patent Office. The Supreme Court concluded that, when presented with new evidence, the district court must make a de novo review of the facts, and may not accord deference to the Patent Office’s findings below. But—and it is a significant but—the court may give deference to Patent Office findings that are not contradicted by new evidence at trial; and the court can give less weight to newly presented evidence based on its consideration of the proceedings below.

The ruling affirmed the Federal Circuit opinion, which was not the case in other (more noteworthy) patent cases decided this term.

Posted by David Swetnam-Burland