The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether a popular administrative process for determining patent validity is unconstitutional. In-house intellectual property attorneys say this will surely be a closely watched case, as the decision could have a significant impact on the patent system.
The high court agreed on June 12 to hear Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group and to determine if “inter partes review, an adversarial process used by the [U.S.] Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to analyze the validity of existing patents, violates the [U.S.] Constitution” by eliminating a private property right without the option of a jury trial.
