Supreme Court Ruling on Patent Board Appeals May Have Ripple Effect

The U.S. Supreme Court may be preparing to close an avenue for patent owners to challenge Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions—a move attorneys say likely would lead to limits on other Federal Circuit reviews.

The question before the justices in Thryv Inc. v. Click-To-Call Technologies LP is whether patent owners can argue on appeal that the PTAB wrongly reviewed a patent because a challenge wasn’t filed in time. Several justices appeared skeptical during oral argument last month about whether patent owners should be able to appeal on that ground.

Shutting the timeliness question off from appeal could restrict the ...