Considering whether the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO)
Director must complete review of the Patent Trial & Appeal
Board's (Board) inter partes review (IPR) decision
within the statutory deadline for a final written decision, the US
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that the statute
imposes no such requirement. CyWee Group Ltd. v. Google LLC et
al., Case Nos. 20-1565, -1567 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 8, 2023)
(Prost, Taranto, Chen, JJ.).
In 2018, Google filed two IPR petitions challenging certain
claims of CyWee's patents. The Board issued its final written
decisions in January 2020, determining that all challenged claims
were unpatentable for obviousness. CyWee appealed to the Federal
Circuit in March 2020. In addition to challenging the patentability
decision, CyWee challenged the appointment of Board administrative
patent judges (APJs) as unconstitutional in view of the
Appointments Clause. In March 2021, the Court affirmed the
Board's decisions and