Robert Isackson

On June 25, 2019, the New York Intellectual Property Association (NYIPLA) filed an Amicus Brief in support of the Respondent in Peter v. NantKwest, Inc., No. 18-801, pending before the Supreme Court.  NantKwest raises the issue of whether patent applicants who are dissatisfied with U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) decisions and subsequently appeal to the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia must pay USPTO staff attorney salaries as part of “[a]ll the expenses of the proceedings” under 35 U.S.C. Section 145, which allows applicants to pursue a civil action against decisions of the USPTO Director.

In Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., Case No. 17-1272, Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored an opinion applying a statutory construction principle to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) that may foreshadow how the new Court, applying the same principle, will dramatically reshape how federal courts must approach patent eligible subject matter challenges by eliminating the judicial exceptions—abstract ideas, laws of nature and natural phenomenon—and thus moot the debate that has followed (and preceded) the Court’s Alice decision. Does Henry Schein, reflecting a unanimous Court’s interpretation of a statute, reflect a shift to now interpreting statutes such that exceptions not found in the text cannot be applied? Certainly, such an argument can be made that the three judicial exceptions to patent eligibility, which courts at all levels throughout the land have struggled over since their inception and which nowhere appear in the text of the Patent Act, could be found, unanimously, inapplicable at the Court’s next review of the issue.