Under the clear, express language of 35 USC 314(d), a Patent Office determination to institute inter partes review of an already issued patent is not reviewable in court. The statute’s clear language overcomes the ordinary presumption favoring judicial review of administrative actions. Also, the Patent Office’s regulation providing that on inter partes review, a patent’s claims are to be given their broadest reasonable construction is an appropriate exercise of the rulemaking authority that Congress granted the Patent Office. Though the standard applied in court cases involving patents is narrower (ordinary meaning as understood by a person of skill in the art), the Patent Office could reasonably choose its broader standard to encourage patentees to define their claims narrowly and to protect the public against broad patents that grant improperly broad monopolies to patentees, foreclosing too much knowledge from public use.
United States Supreme Court (Breyer, J.; Thomas, J., concurring; Alito & Sotomayor, JJ., concurring in part & dissenting in part); June 20, 2015; 2016 WL 3369425