Posted on 06/21/2021 4:09:40 PM PDT by bigdaddy45
I see the impact of this affecting the pharma companies the most. The spend a fortune on developing and testing potentially life saving drugs and need to be able to recover their investments with a successful drug over time. By enabling another level of judicial challenge this ruling extends the period of uncertainty in releasing new drugs and raises the potential litigation costs making some economically unsustainable. This can’t be good for the people with Alzheimer’s or other chronic diseases that are just now being successfully treated in clinical trials.
Looks like a good decision to me.
I’m not sure how patent judges should be regarded differently than other administration ALJs, but policywise, atrocious corruption in the patent system may escalate under the majority opinion’s system.
Haven’t read the decision yet, but Thomas is rarely wrong.
If I understand the decision correctly, the court ruled that Patent Judges making decisions with billion dollar implications and no possibility of appeal was too much power for an appointee that didn’t need Senate confirmation.
The solution is to giving the Senate confirmed head Rob able to overrule them.
I don’t know how honest the patent judges are, but I do know that most of our Senators are for sale to the highest bidder, so I’m not sure if this improves anything.
Because I’m paranoid about everyone being on Chinese payroll I almost always ask “how does China benefit”? Taking the decision away from judges and giving it to easier to buy bureaucrats? How does a country that steals everything and has no respect for intellectual property benefit from that?
Color me clueless on this issue.
I read the article twice and then read the case summary from the written opinion.
I still have no idea how a Constitutional Conservative ought to vote on this.
From Gorsuch’s CONCURRENCE:
“Nor does the Court pause to consider whether venturing further down this remedial path today risks undermining the very separation of powers its merits decision purports to vindicate. While the Court’s merits analysis ensures that executive power properly resides in the Executive Branch, its severability analysis seemingly confers legislative power to the Judiciary—endowing us with the authority to make a raw policy choice between competing lawful options. No doubt, if Congress is dissatisfied with the choice the Court makes on its behalf today, it can always reenter the field and revise our judgment. But doesn’t that just underscore the legislative nature of the Court’s judgment?”
Thomas:
“Today’s majority leaves that tried-and-true approach behind. It never expressly tells us whether administrative patent judges are inferior officers or principal. And the Court never tells us whether the appointment process complies with the Constitution. The closest the Court comes is to say that “the source of the constitutional violation” is not “the appointment of [administrative patent judges] by the Secretary.” Ante, at 23 (plurality opinion). Under our precedent and the Constitution’s text, that should resolve the suit.....
Beyond those questions, the majority’s nebulous approach also leaves open the question of how much principal officer power” someone must wield before he becomes a principal officer. What happens if an officer typically engages in normal inferior-officer work but also has several principal-officer duties? Is he a hybrid officer, properly appointed for four days a week and improperly appointed for the fifth? And whatever test the Court ultimately comes up with to sort through these difficult questions, are we sure it is encapsulated in the two words “inferior officer”?....
I would not be so quick to stare deeply into the penumbras of the Clauses to identify new structural limitations....
The Court today draws a new line dividing inferior officers from principal ones. The fact that this line places administrative patent judges on the side of Ambassadors, Supreme Court Justices, and department heads suggests that something is not quite right....”
Haven’t been paying attention, have you?
Obama reformed it and the system is dead. China is now getting the patents and kicking our arses
Me either, but when in doubt, I’ll go with Thomas.
And maybe it’s just a poorly worded headline, but overhauling patent law ain’t part of the judicial responsibility - passing laws is up to legislators.
Patent reform act (AIA) created a procedure to challenge patents post issuance. (A real disaster for innovation btw) Along with that procedure a new administrative panel was created-the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or PTAB. The judges on that board or ALJ’s were exercising power that was akin to regular judicial appointees.
Someone raised that fact and pointed out that they had not faced confirmation in the Senate. The lower court held that was the case and crafted a remedy to bifurcate the offending part of the statute. The Supreme Court took it up from there and framed it as two decisions:
1- By a 5-4 vote it was found that the appointments clause had been violated.
Now the tricky part-how to fix it. If they ended it there than every decision made by the PTAB would be kaput.
The solution- by a 7-1 vote was to require the commissioner of Patents to review each PTAB decision making thus making the PTAB ALJ’s “minor officers” and not subject to the appointments clause
Like all things involving Joke Roberts it merely kicks the can down the road as Gorsuch noted in a terrific opinion. What will the Commissioner’s appeal look like? Due process? All that will happen is more appeals and uncertainty down the road.
Thomas is brillant. He didn’t become distracted from the main question of the suit: constitutionality. Gorsuch recognized the gray area too, but he suggests relief can come for the legislature.
Thomas is having none of that.
Wow, this is such an informative thread, thank you for posting and thank everyone for contributing. I do not understand it all but it did advance what I know and I am better for reading this.
I am rather an inventor, but frustrated excessively by the way patents work. I also am a huge fan of Justice Thomas, and think it is a crime he is not practically a “rock star” in these USA.
This thread is why Free Republic is perhaps the greatest resource for learning about real America, and by that, preserving orthodox Americanism.
Print it to a PDF and archive it for digital archeologists of the future to “discover.”
Posted by bigdaddy45, this thread starred, in alphabetical order, the following Freepers, all of who I wish to thank for illumination, even if I may not always agree all the time with all:
Alberta’s Child; AnthonySoprano; bigdaddy45; butlerweave; Dave Wright; FlipWilson; gov_bean_ counter; greeneyes; Husker24; Kickass Conservative; Labyrinthos; Lurker; Mariner; mewzilla; monkeyshine; Mr Rogers; nickcarraway; Paladin2; pepsi_junkie; Renfrew; Right Wing Vegan; Salvavida; SeeSharp; Zathras; zeestephen; zeugma; Weirdad (just a groupie)
Thank you all for the illuminating discourse.
He is among many of us. I read through most of what comes out of the court, and pretty much always read anything he has to say first. Thomas is one of the most consistent justices we've ever had on the court. Always worth listening to.
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