The Federal Circuit refused to give new life to a suit accusing the patent office of maintaining a secret rule to block a prolific inventor from obtaining patents.
Gilbert Hyatt’s sued the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeking to set aside what he alleged was a “secret no-patents-for-Hyatt rule.” He appealed after a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in favor of the agency.
Hyatt argued, among other things, that the judge wrongly excluded evidence related to the alleged rule.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit summarily affirmed the lower court’s judgment, without explaining its ...