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Supreme Court to Review Constitutionality of IPR Proceedings
By: Robert Courtney
Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, No. 16-712 (U.S. cert. granted June 12, 2016) (Fed. Cir.: Per curiam (Moore, O'Malley, Hughes)) (PTAB) (5 of 5 stars).
The Supreme has granted certiorari to announce that it will review the constitutionality of IPR proceedings. Specifically, the Supreme Court will explore the question:
Whether inter partes review, an adversarial process used by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to analyze the validity of existing patents, violates the Constitution by extinguishing private property rights through a non-Article III forum without a jury.
That question is laid out in Oil States'petition for certiorari. The Supreme Court announced that it will be taking up only this question not the other questions that Oil States laid out.
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