Patent Challenges Muddled After Judges’ Legality Upended (1)

An untold number of legal challenges to granted patents may be on shaky ground after a Federal Circuit decision upended the legality of administrative patent judges.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s administrative judges were unconstitutionally appointed, and removed part of a 2011 law that set up the agency’s Patent and Trial and Appeal Board that barred judges from being fired without cause.

The precise impact of the ruling isn’t clear, but it’s left patent attorneys scrambling to assess the impact on individual challenges.

“We don’t know what’s going to ...