Tribal Immunity Cannot Be Asserted To Escape IPR Proceedings

Indian tribes ability to shield patents from review at the United States Patent and Trademark Office's ("USPTO") Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") took another blow at the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit in a precedential decision, affirming the decision of the PTAB, held that tribal sovereign immunity cannot be asserted in inter partes review ("IPR") proceedings before the PTAB.¹

The Federal Circuit based the decision on two principles extrapolated from Supreme Court decisions. First, the general proposition that "immunity does not apply where the federal government acting through an agency engages in an investigative action or pursues an adjudicatory agency action."² Second, the Supreme Court's recognized distinction between adjudicative proceedings brought by a private party against a state, on the one hand, and federal agency-initiated enforcement proceedings, on the other. According to the Federal Circuit, immunity may generally be invoked in the