Celgard, LLC v. Matal

Issues: (1) Whether inter partes review—an adversarial process used by the Patent and Trademark Office to analyze the validity of existing patents—violates the Constitution by extinguishing private property rights through a non-article III forum without a jury; (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's issuance of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 36 judgments without opinions for the disposition of appeals from the Patent and Trademark Office violates 35 U.S.C. § 144's requirement that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit “shall issue” its “mandate and opinion” for such appeals; (3) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's pervasive practice of issuing Rule 36 judgments without opinions to affirm more than 50% of appeals from the Patent and Trademark Office has exceeded the bounds of reasonableness and is inconsistent with “principles of right and justice”; and (4) whether the Patent and Trademark Office's consistent practice of failing to consider the claimed invention “as a whole” and failing to consider whether the combination of elements would lead to “anticipated success” in an obviousness determination conflicts with 35 U.S.C. § 103 and the Supreme Court's precedent in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc..