Inventors Reach Out to Supreme Court in Patent Board Judge Fight

Inventors fed up with a Patent and Trademark Office tribunal tasked with reviewing patents are wading into a Supreme Court fight over the constitutionality of its judges.

“39 Aggrieved Inventors” are among the amici filing briefs in the Supreme Court in Arthrex Inc. v. Smith & Nephew Inc., a dispute over whether Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges were constitutionally appointed. Intellectual property rights, the brief argues, “are under attack by large corporations that are motivated to devalue patents and quell competition by small-entity patent owners purportedly protected by their patents.”

“The PTAB is a product of these large ...