Case: Patents/Procedure (Fed. Cir.)

The Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of a federal district court in California rejecting Apple Inc.'s challenges to the U.S. PTO Director’s instructions given to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to govern how the board, as the director’s delegatee, would exercise the director’s statutory, discretionary authority to decline to institute inter partes review proceedings added to the Patent Act by the America Invents Act. The appeals court affirmed the district court’s decision that notice-and-comment rule-making was not required for the challenged instructions.