Teleforum

In Thryv, Inc. v. Click-To-Call Technologies, LP (Supreme Court, April 20, 2020), the Supreme Court held that the Patent Office decision to hear an inter partes review (“IPR”) challenge is not subject to judicial review on time-bar grounds. The majority found that ruling otherwise would “unwind the agency’s merits decision” and “operate to save bad patent claims.”While this case deals largely with an issue of IPR appellate procedure, it should be interesting to a wider audience because it illustrates the Justices' disparate views on a key question: are issued patents property?In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Gorsuch argued that the Constitution does not permit a “politically guided agency” (here the Patent Office) to revoke a property right (like an issued patent) without judicial review. He analogized issued patents to the land patents that the government once granted to “homesteaders who moved west.” He expressed his view that since the