Case: Patents/Summary Judgment (4th Cir.)

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of a federal district court in Virginia granting the U.S. PTO summary judgment on a US Inventor volunteer’s Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to a particular adversary proceeding before a three-judge panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. According to the appeals court, the documents were properly withheld because they weren’t ex parte communications and there was no “government misconduct defense” under Exemption 5 that would require their disclosure.