Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 1 Filed: 03/23/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ARTHREX, INC.,
Appellant
v.
SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., ARTHROCARE CORP.,
Appellees
UNITED STATES,
Intervenor
______________________
2018-2140
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2017-
00275.
______________________
ON PETITIONS FOR REHEARING EN BANC
______________________
ANTHONY P. CHO, Carlson, Gaskey & Olds, PC, Bir-
mingham, MI, for appellant. Also represented by DAVID
LOUIS ATALLAH, DAVID J. GASKEY, JESSICA E. FLEETHAM;
TREVOR ARNOLD, JOHN W. SCHMIEDING, Arthrex, Inc., Na-
ples, FL; ROBERT KRY, JEFFREY A. LAMKEN, MoloLamken
LLP, Washington, DC.
CHARLES T. STEENBURG, Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, PC,
Boston, MA, for appellees. Also represented by RICHARD
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 2 Filed: 03/23/2020
2 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
GIUNTA, TURHAN SARWAR, NATHAN R. SPEED; MICHAEL N.
RADER, New York, NY; MARK J. GORMAN, Smith & Nephew,
Inc., Cordova, TN; MARK ANDREW PERRY, Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher LLP, Washington, DC.
MELISSA N. PATTERSON, Appellate Staff, Civil Division,
United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for
intervenor. Also represented by COURTNEY DIXON, SCOTT
R. MCINTOSH, JOSEPH H. HUNT; SARAH E. CRAVEN, THOMAS
W. KRAUSE, JOSEPH MATAL, FARHEENA YASMEEN RASHEED,
DANIEL KAZHDAN, NICHOLAS THEODORE MATICH, IV, MOLLY
R. SILFEN, Office of the Solicitor, United States Patent and
Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA.
CHARLES R. MACEDO, Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein
LLP, New York, NY, for amicus curiae New York Intellec-
tual Property Law Association. Also represented by DAVID
P. GOLDBERG; ROBERT M. ISACKSON, Leason Ellis LLP,
White Plains, NY; ROBERT JOSEPH RANDO, The Rando Law
Firm P.C., Syosset, NY; KSENIA TAKHISTOVA, East Bruns-
wick, NJ.
MATTHEW S. HELLMAN, Jenner & Block LLP, Wash-
ington, DC, for amicus curiae The Association of Accessible
Medicines. Also represented by YUSUF ESAT, Chicago, IL;
JEFFREY FRANCER, The Association for Accessible Medi-
cines, Washington, DC.
______________________
Before PROST, Chief Judge, NEWMAN, LOURIE, DYK,
MOORE, O’MALLEY, REYNA, WALLACH, TARANTO, CHEN,
HUGHES, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
MOORE, Circuit Judge, with whom O’MALLEY, REYNA, and
CHEN, Circuit Judges, join, concurs in the denial of the pe-
titions for rehearing en banc.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 3
O’MALLEY, Circuit Judge, with whom MOORE and REYNA,
Circuit Judges, join, concurs in the denial of the petitions
for rehearing en banc.
DYK, Circuit Judge, with whom NEWMAN and WALLACH,
Circuit Judges join, and with whom HUGHES, Circuit
Judge, joins as to Part I.A, dissents from the denial of the
petitions for rehearing en banc.
HUGHES, Circuit Judge, with whom WALLACH, Circuit
Judge, joins, dissents from the denial of the petitions for
rehearing en banc.
WALLACH, Circuit Judge, dissents from the denial of
the petitions for rehearing en banc.
PER CURIAM.
ORDER
Petitions for rehearing en banc were filed by appellant
Arthrex, Inc.; appellees Smith & Nephew, Inc. and Arthro-
care Corp.; and intervenor United States. Responses to the
petitions were invited by the court and filed by all three
parties. Two motions for leave to file amici curiae briefs
were filed and granted by the court. The petitions for re-
hearing, responses, and amici curiae briefs were first re-
ferred to the panel that heard the appeals, and thereafter
to the circuit judges who are in regular active service. A
poll was requested, taken, and failed.
Upon consideration thereof,
IT IS ORDERED THAT:
1) The petitions for panel rehearing are denied.
2) The petitions for rehearing en banc are denied.
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4 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
3) The mandate of the court will issue on March 30,
2020.
FOR THE COURT
March 23, 2020 /s/ Peter R. Marksteiner
Date Peter R. Marksteiner
Clerk of Court
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 5 Filed: 03/23/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ARTHREX, INC.,
Appellant
v.
SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., ARTHROCARE CORP.,
Appellees
UNITED STATES,
Intervenor
______________________
2018-2140
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2017-
00275.
______________________
MOORE, Circuit Judge, with whom O’MALLEY, REYNA, and
CHEN, Circuit Judges, join, concurring in the denial of the
petitions for rehearing en banc.
I concur in the court’s decision to deny the petitions for
rehearing en banc as rehearing would only create unneces-
sary uncertainty and disruption. The Arthrex panel fol-
lowed Supreme Court precedent to conclude that the
administrative patent judges (APJs) of the USPTO’s Pa-
tent Trial and Appeal Board were improperly appointed
principal officers. It further followed the Supreme Court’s
direction by severing a portion of the statute to solve that
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2 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
constitutional problem while preserving the remainder of
the statute and minimizing disruption to the inter partes
review system Congress created. The panel’s curative sev-
erance and subsequent decisions from this court have lim-
ited the now constitutionally composed Board’s burden of
addressing cases on remand. I see no merit to the alterna-
tive courses laid out by the dissents. I agree with the gov-
ernment that we are not free to affirm despite the
constitutional infirmity. Finally, I do not agree with Judge
Dyk that we ought to propose a USPTO restructuring of
our making and stay all proceedings (presumably this and
other inter partes review appeals) while both Congress and
the USPTO consider Judge Dyk’s legislative proposal. If
Congress prefers an alternate solution to that adopted by
this court, it is free to legislate, and in the meantime, the
Board’s APJs are constitutionally appointed and inter
partes reviews may proceed according to Congress’ initial
intent.
I
In Arthrex, the court followed Supreme Court prece-
dent in reaching its conclusion that APJs were principal
officers who were not constitutionally appointed. The Su-
preme Court explained that, while there is no “exclusive
criterion for distinguishing between principal and inferior
officers . . . ‘inferior officers’ are officers whose work is di-
rected and supervised at some level by others who were ap-
pointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and
consent of the Senate.” Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S.
651, 661–63 (1997). Arthrex recognized Edmond’s broad
framework as well as factors the Supreme Court considers
when addressing an Appointments Clause issue. Arthrex,
Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 941 F.3d 1320, 1329–30 (Fed.
Cir. 2019). After weighing those factors and considering
the relationship between the Presidentially-appointed Di-
rector of the USPTO and the Board’s APJs, the panel held
that APJs were principal officers who must be
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 3
Presidentially appointed to comport with the Constitu-
tion’s Appointments Clause. Id. at 1335.
As the Arthrex panel explained, the Director has some
authority over conducting the inter partes review process—
such as institution decisions and panel composition—and
may issue guidance or designate decisions as precedential
for future panels of APJs. Id. at 1329–32. But the Director
lacks the authority to independently alter a panel’s final
written decision, and he lacks sufficient control over the
panel’s decision before it issues on behalf of the Executive.
Id. at 1335. APJs had the authority to “render a final de-
cision on behalf of the United States.” Edmond, 520 U.S.
at 663, 665. The panel also recognized that the Director
lacked the “powerful tool for control” that is the authority
to remove APJs “at will and without cause.” Free Enter.
Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477,
501 (2010). 1 The Arthrex decision followed Supreme Court
precedent and was consistent with analyses of other cir-
cuits addressing Appointments Clause questions. See, e.g.,
Intercollegiate Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Copyright Royalty Bd.,
684 F.3d 1332, 1342 (D.C. Cir. 2012); Jones Bros., Inc. v.
Sec’y of Labor, 898 F.3d 669, 679 (6th Cir. 2018).
II
When an officer’s appointment violates the Appoint-
ments Clause, courts “try to limit the solution to the prob-
lem, severing any problematic portions while leaving the
remainder intact.” Free Enter. Fund, 561 U.S. at 508. As
the Supreme Court explained, “we must retain those por-
tions of the Act that are (1) constitutionally valid, (2) capa-
ble of functioning independently, and (3) consistent with
Congress’ basic objectives in enacting the statute.” United
1 To the extent that the dissents suggest otherwise,
it is the Secretary of Commerce, not the Director, who ap-
points (35 U.S.C. § 6(c)) and thus can remove APJs.
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4 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 258–59 (2005) (internal ci-
tations omitted). The Arthrex decision adopted the sever-
ance proposed by the USPTO, which would cause the least
disruption while preserving the inter partes review scheme
Congress intended. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1337–38.
Severing APJ removal protections gives properly ap-
pointed officers sufficient direction and supervision over
APJ decision-making to render them inferior officers. The
curative severance was consistent with the Supreme
Court’s approach to a separation of powers violation in Free
Enterprise Fund. 561 U.S. at 508 (severing a “for-cause”
removal restriction as unconstitutional). It similarly
aligned with the D.C. Circuit’s approach in Intercollegiate,
which severed a removal restriction to rectify an Appoint-
ments Clause violation. 684 F.3d at 1340–41.
While there may have been other possible curative sev-
erances, the Arthrex severance, which the USPTO itself
proposed, was consistent with Congress’ intent in enacting
the inter partes review system. Although Congress origi-
nally intended that APJs have removal protections, that
was not Congress’ central objective when it created the
USPTO’s inter partes review system. The “basic purpose”
of the inter partes review proceeding is “to reexamine an
earlier agency decision.” Cuozzo Speed Techs. LLC v. Lee,
136 S. Ct. 2131, 2144 (2016) (“[T]he proceeding offers a sec-
ond look at an earlier administrative grant of a patent.”);
see, e.g., 157 Cong. Rec. S1326 (March 7, 2011) (Sen. Ses-
sions) (“This will allow invalid patents that were mistak-
enly issued by the PTO to be fixed early in their life, before
they disrupt an entire industry or result in expensive liti-
gation.”). Arthrex’s severance properly retained the por-
tions of the statute necessary to effectuate Congress’ basic
objective of providing an agency mechanism where the va-
lidity of issued patents may be challenged. Congress
“would have preferred a Board whose members are remov-
able at will rather than no Board at all.” Arthrex, 941 F.3d
at 1337–38; see Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of N. New
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 5
England, 546 U.S. 320, 330 (2006) (“After finding an appli-
cation or portion of a statute unconstitutional, we must
next ask: Would the legislature have preferred what is left
of its statute or no statute at all?”). 2 So too does the
USPTO, which proposed the severance that Arthrex
adopted to preserve the system in lieu of the entire thing
being struck down as unconstitutional.
The Arthrex panel’s severance was the “narrowest pos-
sible modification to the scheme Congress created” and the
approach that minimized the disruption to the continuing
operation of the inter partes review system. Arthrex, 941
F.3d at 1337. Because the APJs were constitutionally ap-
pointed as of the implementation of the severance, inter
partes review decisions going forward were no longer ren-
dered by unconstitutional panels. Additionally, subse-
quent decisions issued by this court significantly limited
the number of appeals that needed to be remanded based
on Appointments Clause challenges raised on appeal. See
Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., 941 F.3d
1174, 1175 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (holding that Appointments
Clause challenges not raised prior to or in the appellant’s
opening brief are waived). The window for appeals from
Board decisions issued prior to October 31, 2019—the date
Arthrex issued—has closed. And no more than 81 appeals
including Arthrex itself can be vacated and remanded 3
2 Judge Hughes suggests that Congress would not
have divested APJs of their removal protection to preserve
the remainder of the statute and that Congress should fix
the statute. To be clear, this would require holding the in-
ter partes review statute unconstitutional and paralyzing
the Board until Congress acts.
3 Per the Supreme Court’s decision in Lucia, Arthrex,
and the other appeals with preserved Appointments
Clause challenges, were vacated and remanded for
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6 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
based on preserved Appointments Clause violations. 4 The
Board decides on average 820 cases each month (39 inter
partes reviews and 781 ex parte appeals). 5 The Arthrex
hearings before new panels of APJs, who are now properly
appointed. Lucia v. SEC, 138 S. Ct. 2044, 2055 (2018)
(“[T]he ‘appropriate’ remedy for an adjudication tainted
with an appointments violation is a new ‘hearing before a
properly appointed’ official.”); see Intercollegiate, 684 F.3d
at 1342; Jones Bros., 898 F.3d at 679. Harper v. Virginia
Dep’t of Taxation does not establish that an applied sever-
ance, which preserves an otherwise unconstitutional stat-
ute, applies retroactively. 509 U.S. 86 (1993). The panel
of APJs that decided the inter partes review in this case
was not constitutionally appointed when it rendered that
decision. To forgo vacatur as Judge Dyk suggests would be
in direct contrast with Lucia and would undermine any in-
centive a party may have to raise an Appointments Clause
challenge. The USPTO briefed this issue and likewise re-
jects the argument that Harper creates a basis for affirm-
ing. Supp. Br. of United States, Polaris v. Kingston, Nos.
2018-1768, -1831, at 14.
4 We have thus far vacated and remanded 37 appeals
which properly preserved the Appointments Clause chal-
lenge by raising it before or in their opening brief. There
are 44 Board decisions rendered prior to our curative deci-
sion (October 31, 2019) where a notice of appeal has been
filed by the patent owner, but no opening brief as of yet, or
where an opening brief has been filed and does raise an
Appointments Clause challenge. Thus, the universe of
cases which could be vacated and remanded (if every one of
these appellants requests remand) is 81.
5 See https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-
process/patent-trial-and-appeal-board/appeals-and-inter-
ferences-statistics-page (to ascertain ex parte stats); see
https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/patent-
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 7
decision will result in at most 81 remands. And the re-
mands are narrow in scope and will not necessitate any-
thing like a full-blown process. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1340
(holding that the USPTO is not required to reopen the rec-
ord or permit new briefing).
The severance applied in Arthrex resulted in minimal
disruption to the inter partes review system and no uncer-
tainty presently remains as to the constitutionality of APJ
appointments. Rehearing this case en banc would have un-
raveled an effective cure and created additional disruption
by increasing the potential number of cases that would re-
quire reconsideration on remand. Judge Dyk’s suggestion
that Arthrex be stayed to allow Congress to legislate a cure
makes little sense. Staying the case, and any other pend-
ing appeal that challenges the Appointments Clause,
would result in an unnecessary backlog of cases pending a
congressional cure that is not guaranteed. And even if Con-
gress did codify a new inter partes review scheme, those
stayed cases would still need to be reprocessed on remand
under the new scheme.
Nothing in the Arthrex decision prevents Congress
from legislating to provide an alternative fix to the Ap-
pointments Clause issue. Congress can reinstate title 5 re-
moval protections for APJs while ensuring that the inter
partes review system complies with the Appointments
Clause, if it so chooses.
III
There are several problems with the creative approach
suggested in Judge Dyk’s dissent. The dissent proposes
that we stay this (and possibly other inter partes review
appeals) while Congress or the USPTO considers an agency
restructuring of his proposal. I am not convinced that it
trial-and-appeal-board/statistics/aia-trial-statistics-ar-
chive (to ascertain inter parte review stats).
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8 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
would be appropriate or wise to issue such stays. Curing
the constitutional defect had immediate and significant
benefits. And there is a significant difference between a
court’s election to sever a statutory provision as unconsti-
tutional and issuing legislative or regulatory advisory
mandates. The Constitution does not provide us authority
to legislate, and, “mindful that our constitutional mandate
and institutional competence are limited,” we should re-
frain from proposing legislative or regulatory fixes. Ayotte,
546 U.S. at 329. The dissent goes far afield by proposing
an entirely new agency framework for review for Congress
to adopt. Dissent at 9–14 (Dyk, J., dissenting). We should
not attempt to correct a separation of powers issue by cre-
ating one of our own.
Finally, Judge Dyk’s proposed fix has not been re-
viewed and should not be presumed to pass constitutional
muster. 6 The dissent suggests that a reconsideration panel
comprising the Director, Deputy Director, and Commis-
sioner of Patents would suffice. Id. at 9–12. But it is not
clear, as Judge Dyk suggests, that the Director has the au-
thority to remove either the Deputy Director or the Com-
missioner of Patents without cause. Section 3(b)(2)(C)
limits the Secretary of Commerce’s ability to remove the
Commissioner of Patents to situations of “misconduct or
nonsatisfactory performance . . . .” 35 U.S.C. § 3(b)(2)(C).
And § 3(c) may afford the Deputy Director removal
6 Even if the USPTO were to adopt the dissent’s pro-
posed framework, Arthrex and all other similarly situated
cases would still need to be vacated and remanded to the
Board. The new framework did not exist when Arthrex was
decided and it would not rectify the constitutional infirmity
retroactively.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 9
protections under title 5. 7 For the reasons given, I do not
believe it proper or prudent to stay cases while Congress
considers Judge Dyk’s restructuring of the USPTO.
IV
The Arthrex panel followed Supreme Court precedent
in reaching its decision. The severance provided has mini-
mized disruption and preserved Congress’ intent as best
possible while ensuring that the Constitution’s structural
protections are minded. Given that the Arthrex decision is
squarely rooted in Supreme Court precedent, I agree with
the court’s denial of rehearing en banc. If the curative sev-
erance adopted by this court is not consistent with Con-
gress’ intent, Congress can legislate to restore the removal
protections and adopt a different curative mechanism.
7 Section 3(c) expressly says that title 5 protections
apply to the agency’s “officers and employees” of which the
Deputy Director is undeniably one. Moreover, in other sec-
tions of the same statute when Congress intended to ex-
empt an officer from title 5 protections it stated so
explicitly. See, e.g., 35 U.S.C. § 3(b)(2)(C) (“[T]he Commis-
sioners may be removed from office by the Secre-
tary . . . without regard to the provisions of title 5 . . .”).
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United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ARTHREX, INC.,
Appellant
v.
SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., ARTHROCARE CORP.,
Appellees
UNITED STATES,
Intervenor
______________________
2018-2140
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2017-
00275.
______________________
O’MALLEY, Circuit Judge, with whom MOORE and REYNA,
Circuit Judges, join, concurring in the denial of the peti-
tions for rehearing en banc.
I join Judge Moore’s concurrence in full. I agree that
the panel correctly concluded that, under the Supreme
Court’s Appointments Clause jurisprudence, Administra-
tive Patent Judges (“APJs”) are principal officers who were
not properly appointed to their adjudicative positions. I
also agree that, rather than invalidate the entirety of the
America Invents Act (“AIA”), Congress would prefer to pre-
serve the patent review scheme it created under that Act.
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2 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
In severing from the AIA the application of the removal re-
strictions in 5 U.S.C. § 7513 (“Title 5”) to APJs, the panel
hewed closely to the principles guiding judicial severance:
refraining from rewriting the statute or invalidating more
of it than was absolutely necessary. See R.R. Ret. Bd. v.
Alton R.R. Co., 295 U.S. 330, 362 (1935); Helman v. Dep’t
of Veterans Affairs, 856 F.3d 920, 930 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
While I agree with Judge Dyk and Judge Hughes that Title
5’s protections for government employees are both im-
portant and long-standing, I do not believe Congress would
conclude that those protections outweigh the importance of
keeping the remainder of the AIA intact—a statute it de-
bated and refined over a period of more than six years.
I write separately to address one issue: the suggestion
in Judge Dyk’s dissent that the court’s decision to sever the
application of Title 5’s removal protections from the re-
mainder of the AIA retroactively renders all prior APJ de-
cisions constitutional, thereby obviating the need for panel
rehearings in any cases decided under the AIA. Respect-
fully, that suggestion confuses the remedy the panel
deemed appropriate in this case with the constitutional fix
it deemed necessary to allow APJs to render future deci-
sions in proceedings under the AIA.
That dissent urges that, “to be consistent with Harper,”
retroactive application of Arthrex and its “remedy” is nec-
essary. Dyk Op. at 17. But that contention misreads Har-
per v. Virginia Dep’t of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86 (1993).
Harper addressed whether a prior Supreme Court decision
holding certain taxes unconstitutional applied to taxes lev-
ied before that decision issued. Harper is best described by
the Supreme Court itself: “when (1) the Court decides a
case and applies the (new) legal rule of that case to the par-
ties before it, then (2) it and other courts must treat that
same (new) legal rule as ‘retroactive,’ applying it, for exam-
ple, to all pending cases, whether or not those cases involve
predecision events.” Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514
U.S. 749, 752 (1995). Judge Dyk argues that the general
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 3
rule requiring that we give retroactive effect to constitu-
tional decisions “applies to remedies as well, such as the
remedy in this case,” meaning, in his view, that once sev-
erance occurs, all actions taken by APJs before that point,
even if unconstitutional at the time, are rendered constitu-
tional nunc pro tunc. Dyk Op. at 17 (citing Reynoldsville,
514 U.S. at 759). I disagree. While the principle of retro-
active application requires that we afford the same remedy
afforded the party before the court to all others still in the
appellate pipeline, judicial severance is not a “remedy”; it
is a forward-looking judicial fix.
It is true that if, as the panel concluded, the appoint-
ment of APJs ran afoul of the Constitution, that fact was
true from the time of appointment forward, rendering all
APJ decisions under the AIA unconstitutional when ren-
dered. But, no one claims that our declaration of that fact
in this case would permit us to reopen closed cases decided
under that unconstitutional structure. See, e.g., Reyn-
oldsville, 514 U.S. at 758 (“New legal principles, even when
applied retroactively, do not apply to cases already
closed.”). All that Harper and Reynoldsville say is that we
must afford all litigants with pending matters the same
remedy we afford to the Arthrex appellant. 1 In other
words, we may not give prospective-only effect to our rul-
ings, both as to the merits and as to the precise remedy.
But our curative severance of the statute, does not
“remedy” the harm to Arthrex, whose patent rights were
adjudicated under an unconstitutional scheme. So too, in
Harper: the Court’s ruling that the state taxes at issue had
been collected unconstitutionally did not remedy the harm
1 This does not mean, of course, that we must provide
a remedy to litigants who waived the issue. United States
v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 268 (2005) (“[W]e expect reviewing
courts to apply ordinary prudential doctrines” including
those relating to waiver and harmless-error).
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4 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
caused by the unlawful collection of taxes. The Court re-
manded for additional relief to the litigants before it in the
form of reimbursement of the unconstitutionally collected
taxes or “some other order” to rectify the “unconstitutional
deprivation.” Harper, 509 U.S. at 98–99, 100–101. We did
the same here: the remedy afforded the parties in Arthrex
is a new hearing before a properly appointed panel of
judges. Under the Supreme Court’s Appointments Clause
jurisprudence, Arthrex is entitled to that relief because
“the ‘appropriate’ remedy for an adjudication tainted with
an appointments violation is a new ‘hearing before a
properly appointed’ official.” Lucia v. S.E.C., 138 S. Ct.
2044, 2055 (2018) (quoting Ryder v. United States, 515 U.S.
177, 183, 188 (1995)); see also NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573
U.S. 513, 521, 557 (2014); Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714,
736 (1986). Our decision that the statute can be rendered
constitutional by severance does not remedy any past
harm—it only avoids continuing harm in the future. It is
only meaningful prospectively, once severance has oc-
curred. 2
The Government agrees. See Supp. Br. of United
States, Polaris v. Kingston, Nos. 2018-1768, -1831, at 13–
14. Presented with an opportunity to brief this very issue,
the Government expressly rejected the suggestion in Judge
Dyk’s concurrence in Bedgear, LLC v. Fredman Bros. Fur-
niture Co., 783 F. App’x 1029 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (and his dis-
sent here) that the Arthrex panel’s severance order applies
2 That dissent’s attempt to distinguish Lucia is pred-
icated on this same misunderstanding of Harper. Because
judicial severance of one portion of an unconstitutional
statute is, by necessity, only applicable prospectively, I
agree with the Arthrex panel that a new hearing before a
new panel of APJs is the only appropriate remedy for those
whose proceedings were tainted by the constitutional vio-
lation.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 5
retroactively. Id. (“[N]either Arthrex’s determination that
the statutory restrictions on removal of APJs violated the
Appointments Clause, nor the panel’s invalidation of those
restrictions, was sufficient to eliminate the impact of the
asserted constitutional violation on the original agency de-
cision.”).
The cases on which the dissent relies do not counsel a
contrary conclusion. For example, the suggestion that, in
Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Over-
sight Board, 561 U.S. 477 (2010), “[t]he Court did not view
[severance] as fixing the problem only prospectively” reads
too much into the case. Dyk Op. at 21. Free Enterprise
considered the petitioners’ request for a declaratory judg-
ment that the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board is unconstitutional and for an injunction preventing
the Board from exercising any of its powers prospectively.
561 U.S. at 510. The Court held that statutory restrictions
on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s power to re-
move Board members were “unconstitutional and void,”
and invalidated the removal provision. Id. at 509–10. The
Court further held that, because it found the unconstitu-
tional removal provisions could be excised from the remain-
der of the statute, “petitioners [were] not entitled to broad
injunctive relief against the Board’s continued operations.”
Id. at 513 (emphasis added). The decision did not render
all prior Board actions constitutional. The Court simply
explained that, by virtue of having severed the non-re-
moval provisions, the Board could act in the future free of
the taint of those unconstitutional provisions.
Like Harper, neither Reynoldsville nor Edmond v.
United States, 520 U.S. 651, 662–63 (1997), support the
dissent’s position that rehearing before a new panel is un-
necessary. In Reynoldsville, the Court made clear—as it
did in Harper—that any remedy provided the party bring-
ing the original constitutional challenge must be afforded
to all other parties with cases that remained open. 514
U.S. at 758–59. It held that a court may not fashion a
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 19 Filed: 03/23/2020
6 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
remedy for a party before it and then declare that the rem-
edy not apply to any other party still in the pipeline—i.e.,
whose claim was decided under an unconstitutional
scheme and remains open. Id. at 753–54. And in Edmond,
the challenged appointment was found constitutional. 520
U.S. at 655, 666. Severance was not even at issue. Neither
case addressed retroactive application of orders fixing con-
stitutional violations by severance.
By contrast, Booker makes clear that, even once judi-
cial severance of a statute occurs, individuals adjudged un-
der the statute as originally written still are entitled to a
remedy if their cases are pending on direct review. In
Booker, the Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553(b)(1)—the provision of the federal sentencing stat-
ute making the United States Sentencing Guidelines man-
datory—violated the Sixth Amendment’s requirement that
juries, not judges, find facts relevant to sentencing. 543
U.S. at 244. Accordingly, the Court severed and excised
§ 3553(b)(1) from the statutory scheme. And, the Court
ruled that any defendant whose sentence was “authorized
by the jury’s verdict—a sentence lower than the sentence
authorized by the Guidelines as written . . . may seek resen-
tencing under the system set forth in today’s opinions.” Id.
at 267–68 (emphasis added). In permitting a defendant to
seek resentencing post-severance, the Supreme Court
made clear that judicial severance of a statute is neces-
sarily a prospective act. Id.; see also Free Enter., 561 U.S.
at 513. This is the same conclusion reached by the DC Cir-
cuit in Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Copy-
right Royalty Board, 684 F.3d 1332 (2012), with which the
panel decision in this case rightly agrees.
The dissent’s attempt to read retroactive application of
severance orders designed to obviate future or ongoing con-
stitutional violations into Harper and the other Supreme
Court case law it cites, respectfully, is misplaced. Those
cases address retroactive application of remedies, not the
forward-looking curative act of severance.
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 20 Filed: 03/23/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ARTHREX, INC.,
Appellant
v.
SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., ARTHROCARE CORP.,
Appellees
UNITED STATES,
Intervenor
______________________
2018-2140
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2017-
00275.
______________________
DYK, Circuit Judge, with whom NEWMAN and WALLACH,
Circuit Judges join, and with whom HUGHES, Circuit
Judge, joins as to Part I.A, dissenting from the denial of
rehearing en banc.
I respectfully dissent from the court’s decision not to
rehear this case en banc.
The panel here holds that the appointment of Admin-
istrative Patent Judges (“APJs”), when conducted in ac-
cordance with the America Invents Act (“AIA”), would be
unconstitutional if those APJs were protected by the
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 21 Filed: 03/23/2020
2 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
removal provisions of Title 5. The panel avoids this result
by severing the Title 5 removal provisions as applied to
APJs, and thereby “render[ing] the APJs inferior officers
and remedy[ing] the constitutional appointment problem.”
Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 941 F.3d 1320, 1325
(Fed. Cir. 2019).
As discussed in Part I, I conclude that even if the panel
were correct that the present structure of IPR proceedings
violates the Appointments Clause, the draconian remedy
chosen by the panel—invalidation of the Title 5 removal
protections for APJs—rewrites the statute contrary to Con-
gressional intent. That remedy should not be invoked
without giving Congress and the United States Patent and
Trademark Office (“PTO”) itself the opportunity to devise a
less disruptive remedy. In Part II, I conclude that even if
the Title 5 remedy were adopted, this would not require
invalidation of preexisting Board decisions. In Part III, I
address the question of whether APJs are principal offic-
ers.
I
A
The panel’s invalidation of Title 5 removal protections
and severance is not consistent with Supreme Court prec-
edent. Severability analysis requires “looking to legislative
intent.” United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 246 (2005)
(collecting cases). In performing this analysis, the court
cannot sever portions of the statute that would be con-
sistent with “Congress’ basic objectives in enacting the
statute.” Booker, 543 U.S. at 259. Severance is appropriate
if the remaining statute “will function in a manner con-
sistent with the intent of Congress.” Alaska Airlines, Inc.
v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 685 (1987) (emphasis omitted). The
panel departs from these requirements. By eliminating Ti-
tle 5 removal protections for APJs, the panel is performing
major surgery to the statute that Congress could not possi-
bly have foreseen or intended.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 3
Removal protections for administrative judges have
been an important and longstanding feature of Congres-
sional legislation, and this protection continued to be an
important feature of the AIA enacted in 2011, as Judge
Hughes detailed in his concurrence in Polaris Innovations
Ltd. v. Kingston Tech. Co., Inc., 792 F. App’x 820, 828–830
(Fed. Cir. 2020) (Hughes, J., concurring).
Before the passage of the Administrative Procedure Act
(“APA”) in 1946, administrative law judges (then called
“hearing examiners”) did not have any removal protections
or any special status distinguishing them from other
agency employees. See Ramspeck v. Fed. Trial Examiners
Conference, 345 U.S. 128, 130 (1953). “Many complaints
were voiced against the actions of the hearing examiners,
it being charged that they were mere tools of the agency
concerned and subservient to the agency heads in making
their proposed findings of fact and recommendations.” Id.
at 131. To address these concerns in the APA, Congress
“provide[d] for a special class of semi-independent subordi-
nate hearing officers,” H.R. Rep. No. 79-1980, at 10 (1946).
“Since the securing of fair and competent hearing person-
nel was viewed as ‘the heart of formal administrative adju-
dication,’ the Administrative Procedure Act contain[ed] a
number of provisions designed to guarantee the independ-
ence of hearing examiners.” Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S.
478, 514 (1978) (quoting Final Report of the Attorney Gen-
eral’s Committee on Administrative Procedure 46 (1941)
(citation omitted)).
One such provision was Section 11 of the APA, which
provided that Administrative Law Judges (“ALJs”) gener-
ally would be “removable . . . only for good cause,” Admin-
istrative Procedure Act, ch. 324, § 11, 60 Stat. 237, 244
(1946). These provisions were continued in the Civil Ser-
vice Reform Act of 1978. H.R. Rep. No. 95-1403, at 304
(1978) (“An administrative law judge appointed under sec-
tion 3105 of this title may be removed by the agency in
which he is employed only for good cause established and
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 23 Filed: 03/23/2020
4 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
determined by the Civil Service Commission on the record
after opportunity for hearing.”). This for-cause removal
protection was codified in 5 U.S.C. § 7521. 1
While the protections of section 7521 were inapplica-
ble to administrative judges of the PTO (since they were
not “appointed under section 3105”), similar concerns led
to the enactment of protections for PTO administrative
judges. Current APJs trace their lineage to the PTO’s ex-
aminers-in-chief, who were originally nominated by the
President and confirmed by the Senate. Arthrex, 941 F.3d
at 1334; 35 U.S.C. § 3 (1952). Beginning with the 1975
amendments to Title 35, the examiners-in-chief (now APJs)
were “remove[d] . . . from the political arena by changing
these positions from ones of Presidential appointment.”
Hearings Before Subcommittee No. 3 of the Committee on
the Judiciary House of Representatives, 92d Cong. 43 (1971)
(statement Of Edward J. Brenner, Former Commissioner
Of Patents). The 1975 amendment gave the Secretary of
Commerce the sole authority to appoint examiners-in-chief
“under the classified civil service.” 35 U.S.C. § 7 (1976); see
also An Act to Amend Title 35, United States Code,
1 “An action may be taken against an administrative
law judge appointed under section 3105 of this title by
the agency in which the administrative law judge is em-
ployed only for good cause established and determined by
the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after op-
portunity for hearing before the Board.” 5 U.S.C. § 7521
(emphasis added). Though Executive Order 13843, dated
July 10, 2018, placed all administrative law judges in the
excepted service, and thus “not subject to the requirements
of 5 CFR, part 302” and further amended 5 C.F.R. § 6.4 to
eliminate the application of title 5 protections to adminis-
trative law judges in general, the order was limited by this
statutory provision. 83 Fed. Reg. 32756–57 (“Except as re-
quired by statute . . . .”).
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 24 Filed: 03/23/2020
ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 5
“Patents”, and For Other Purposes, Pub. L. 93-601, §§ 1-
2, 88 Stat. 1956 (1975) (codified as amended at 35 U.S.C.
§§ 3, 7 (1976)); Polaris, 792 F. App’x at 828–29 (Hughes, J.,
concurring). This had the result of extending the Civil Ser-
vice protections for competitive service employees to the ex-
aminers-in-chief (now APJs). See Arnett v. Kennedy, 416
U.S. 134, 150–51 (1974), overruled in part on other grounds
by Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532
(1985). This included both provisions concerning appoint-
ment and removal.
Until 1999, despite several amendments, Congress re-
tained the status of APJs as federal employees in the com-
petitive service under Title 5. Polaris, 792 F. App’x at 829
(Hughes, J., concurring) (citing Patent Law Amendment
Acts of 1984, Pub. L. 98-622, title II, sec. 201, § 7(a), 98
Stat. 3383, 3386 (1984) (codified as amended at 35 U.S.C.
§ 7 (1988), and the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, Pub. L.
95-454, 92 Stat. 1121)). In 1999, Congress eliminated the
requirement that APJs be appointed under competitive
service provisions, but added the current 35 U.S.C. § 3(c)
language, which extended Title 5 removal protections to
APJs. Patent and Trademark Office Efficiency Act, Pub. L.
106-113, ch. 1, sec. 4713, § 3(c), 113 Stat. 1501A (codified
as amended at 35 U.S.C. § 3(c) (2000)). 2 Thus, although
APJs were not subject to appointment as competitive ser-
vice employees, “APJs remained subject to discipline or dis-
missal subject to the efficiency of the service standard.”
Polaris, 792 F. App’x at 830 (Hughes, J., concurring). Sig-
nificantly, the language of § 3(c) remained unaltered
2 In fact, even when certain prior bills of the 1999
Act were considering making the PTO exempt from Title 5,
a special carve out provision was always contemplated for
“quasi-judicial examiners,” who would still be removable
“only for such cause as will promote the efficiency” of the
agency. S. Rep. No 105-42, at 9, 48 (1997).
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 25 Filed: 03/23/2020
6 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
despite the otherwise major overhaul in AIA legislation.
See id. at 830; 35 U.S.C. § 3(c) (2012). Those removal pro-
tections were seen as essential to fair performance of the
APJs quasi-judicial role.
In sum, ALJs in general and APJs in particular have
been afforded longstanding and continuous protection from
removal. The panel gives little weight to the existing stat-
utory protections in its severance analysis. Moreover, here,
the provision being partially invalidated is not even part of
the Patent Act but is instead in Title 5. 3 Elimination of
those protections cannot be squared with Congressional de-
sign.
To be sure, I do not suggest that the inappropriateness
of the Title 5 invalidation should lead to invalidation of the
entire AIA statutory scheme. What I do suggest is that
Congress almost certainly would prefer the opportunity to
itself fix any Appointments Clause problem before impos-
ing the panel’s drastic remedy.
There is no question that Congress could pass a far
simpler and less disruptive fix and that such a fix is avail-
able—Congress could amend the statute to provide agency
review of APJ decisions. 4 Soon after the issuance of the
3 The panel relies on Intercollegiate Broad. Sys. v.
Copyright Royalty Bd., 684 F.3d 1332 (D.C. Cir. 2012), to
justify its severance decision. However, that case is neither
binding nor apposite to the situation here. In Intercolle-
giate, the severed removal protections were part of the
same substantive statute that authorized the Copyright
Royalty Judges and there was no showing that excising the
removal protections was contrary to Congressional intent.
Id. at 1340–41; see also 17 U.S.C. § 802.
4 In fact, Congressional fixes of PTAB Appointments
Clause problems have been a feature of past Congressional
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 26 Filed: 03/23/2020
ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 7
panel Arthrex opinion, the House Judiciary Committee
held hearings to discuss the remedial implications of this
case. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board and the Appoint-
ments Clause: Implications of Recent Court Decisions:
Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual
Property, and the Internet of the H. Comm. on the Judici-
ary, 116th Cong. (2019) (“Arthrex Hearing”). 5 At the hear-
ing, subcommittee members expressed concern that
striking the removal protections for APJs would be “incon-
sistent with the idea of creating an adjudicatory body” ca-
pable of “providing independent impartial justice.” Id. at
45:30 (statement of Rep. Hank Johnson). They agreed that
it was Congress, not this court, that bears the “responsibil-
ity to consider a legislative fix,” id. at 46:00–47:00 (state-
ment of Rep. Hank Johnson), and “question[ed] whether
[the panel decision was] the right way to achieve the ap-
parent objective behind the Appointments Clause jurispru-
dence, namely, to ensure that there is an official
sufficiently accountable to the President, who signs off on
important executive branch decisions,” id. at 53:00 (state-
ment of Rep. Jerrold Nadler).
Both subcommittee members and witnesses urged that
providing agency review of PTAB decisions was a prefera-
ble solution. They noted how this could be achieved: (1)
establishing a review board comprised of properly ap-
pointed principal officers with authority to review APJ
legislation. See Patent and Trademark Administrative
Judges Appointment Authority Revision, Pub. L. 110-313,
§ 1, 122 Stat. 3014, 3014 (2008) (codified as amended at 35
U.S.C. § 6(a) (2012)) (providing for appointments of APJs
by Secretary of Commerce instead of by the Director).
5 Citations are to the video recording of the hearing,
available at https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/even-
tsingle.aspx?EventID=2249.
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 27 Filed: 03/23/2020
8 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
decisions, or (2) providing review of APJ decisions by the
Director. 6
If Congress provided such agency review of APJ panel
decisions, this would cure the core constitutional issue
identified by the panel by subjecting all APJ decisions to
review by a principal officer. If APJs were subject to review
by executive officials at the PTO, then they would no longer
be principal officers. The APJs would “have no power to
render a final decision on behalf of the United States unless
permitted to do so by other Executive officers, and hence
they [would be] inferior officers within the meaning of Ar-
ticle II.” Edmond, 520 U.S. at 665; id. at 664–65 (conclud-
ing that the judges of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal
Appeals are inferior officers because the Court of Appeals
for the Armed Forces has the “power to reverse decisions of
the court” if it “grants review upon petition of the accused”);
id. at 662 (“Whether one is an ‘inferior officer’ depends on
whether he has a superior.”); see also Freytag v. Comm’r,
501 U.S. 868, 881–82 (1991) (holding that a Tax Court spe-
cial trial judge is an “inferior officer” even though “special
trial judges . . . render [final] decisions of the Tax Court in
[certain] cases”); Helman v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 856
F.3d 920, 929 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (“[T]he special trial judges
[were] inferior officers [in Freytag].”). Even the panel here
appears to agree. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1329–31 (in finding
an Appointments Clause violation, relying on there being
“no provision or procedure providing the Director the power
to single-handedly review, nullify or reverse a final written
decision issued by a panel of APJs”).
6 Id. at 1:04:00 (statement of John F. Duffy); id. at
1:16:20 (statement of Arti K. Rai); id. at 1:42:12 (statement
of Rep. Hank Johnson); see also id. at 1:11:00 (statement of
John M. Whealan); id. at 1:44:23–1:46:30 (witnesses argu-
ing for unilateral review by the Director).
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 9
Supreme Court precedent and circuit authority sup-
port a temporary stay to allow Congress to implement a
legislative fix in the Appointments Clause context. Buckley
v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 144 (1976) (finding the Federal Elec-
tion Commission’s exercise of enforcement authority to be
a violation of the Appointments Clause, but “draw[ing] on
the Court’s practice in the apportionment and voting rights
cases and stay[ing] . . . the Court’s judgment” to “afford
Congress an opportunity to reconstitute the Commission
by law or to adopt other valid enforcement mechanisms”);
N. Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S.
50 (1982) (staying a judgment holding that “the broad
grant of jurisdiction to the bankruptcy courts contained in
28 U.S.C. § 1471 [(1976)] is unconstitutional” for over three
months in order to “afford Congress an opportunity to re-
constitute the bankruptcy courts or to adopt other valid
means of adjudication, without impairing the interim ad-
ministration of the bankruptcy laws”); see also Bowsher v.
Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 736 (1986) (“Our judgment is stayed
for a period not to exceed 60 days to permit Congress to
implement the [constitutional] fallback [reporting] provi-
sions [of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Con-
trol Act].”); Md. Comm. for Fair Representation v. Tawes,
377 U.S. 656, 676 (1964) (after finding a reapportionment
violation, suggesting that the state legislature be given the
opportunity “to enact a constitutionally valid state legisla-
tive apportionment scheme”); Aurelius Inv., LLC v. Puerto
Rico, 915 F.3d 838, 863 (1st Cir. 2019) (“[O]ur mandate in
these appeals shall not issue for 90 days, so as to allow the
President and the Senate to validate the currently defec-
tive appointments or reconstitute the Board in accordance
with the Appointments Clause.”).
B
So too, it may well be that Congressional legislation
would be unnecessary because the agency itself could fix
the problem by creating an agency review process. As dis-
cussed below, the Director may be able to designate a
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 29 Filed: 03/23/2020
10 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
special panel to rehear decisions rendered by the original
panel of APJs, that rehearing panel to be composed of only
officers not subject to Title 5 removal protections, i.e., an
executive rehearing panel with panel members appointed
by the President or essentially removable at will by the
Secretary of Commerce—the Director, the Deputy Director,
and the Commissioner of Patents. See, e.g., Patent Trial
and Appeal Board Standard Operating Procedure 2 (ver-
sion 10), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/docu-
ments/SOP2%20R10%20FINAL.pdf. Far from raising
separation of powers concerns, this approach permits the
agency to chart its own course as to the appropriate fix.
Section 6(c) requires that “[e]ach appeal . . . and inter
partes review shall be heard by at least 3 members of the
Patent Trial and Appeal Board.” 35 U.S.C. § 6(c). It also
specifies that “[o]nly the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
may grant rehearings.” Id. Section 6(a) provides that
“[t]he Director, the Deputy Director, the Commissioner of
Patents, the Commissioner for Trademarks, and the ad-
ministrative patent judges shall constitute the Patent Trial
and Appeal Board.” 35 U.S.C. § 6(a). And the statute pro-
vides that panel members “shall be designated by the Di-
rector.” 35 U.S.C. § 6(c). 7
There is no requirement in the statute or regulations
that the rehearing panel be the same as the original panel.
We have previously held that the statutory grant of author-
ity under section 6(c) (then 35 U.S.C. § 7 (1988)) to “desig-
nate the members of a panel hearing an appeal . . .
7 The Director is “responsible for providing policy di-
rection and management supervision for the Office,” 35
U.S.C. § 3(a)(2)(A), with the authority to “govern the con-
duct of the proceedings in the Office,” 35 U.S.C.
§ 2(b)(2)(A). He is also “vested” with “[t]he powers and du-
ties of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.” 35
U.S.C. § 3(a)(1).
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 30 Filed: 03/23/2020
ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 11
extend[s] to [the] designation of a panel to consider a re-
quest for rehearing.” In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1533
(Fed. Cir. 1994), abrogated on other grounds by In re Bilski,
545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (interpreting an earlier ver-
sion of the statute); see also Oil States Energy Services,
LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 138 S. Ct. 1365, 1381
(2018) (“[T]he Director can add more members to the
panel—including himself—and order the case reheard.”)
(Gorsuch, J., dissenting, with Chief Justice Roberts join-
ing). “In those cases where a different panel of the Board
is reconsidering an earlier panel decision, the Board is still
the entity reexamining that earlier decision; it is simply
doing so through a different panel.” Id. at 1533–34. The
regulations do not specify the composition of a rehearing
panel, simply stating that “[w]hen rehearing a decision on
petition, a panel will review the decision for an abuse of
discretion.” 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c) (emphasis added).
The legislative history similarly confirms the Direc-
tor’s authority. In 1927, Congress, at the same time that it
eliminated the provision requiring the Commissioner (now
the Director) to review board of examiner decisions, made
clear that the “supervisory power of the commissioner [to
rehear panel decisions], as it has existed for a number of
decades, remains unchanged by the bill.” S. Rep. No. 69-
1313, at 4 (1927).
The Director has previously created such special re-
hearing panels. See Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1330 (“That
standing [Precedential Opinion] [P]anel, composed of at
least three Board members, can rehear and reverse any
Board decision and can issue decisions that are binding on
all future panels of the Board.”); see also Patent Trial and
Appeal Board Standard Operating Procedure 2 (version
10), https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/
SOP2%20R10%20FINAL.pdf.
A rehearing panel consisting of the Director, the Dep-
uty Director, and the Commissioner of Patents would itself
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 31 Filed: 03/23/2020
12 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
comply with the Appointments Clause. The Director is a
principal officer appointed by the President and confirmed
by the Senate. 8 The Deputy Director and the Commis-
sioner of Patents are properly appointed inferior officers
because they are removable by principal officers. “The
power to remove officers, [the Supreme Court has] recog-
nized, is a powerful tool for control.” Edmond, 520 U.S. at
664. The Deputy Director is appointed by the Secretary of
Commerce (a Presidentially appointed officer) under 35
U.S.C. § 3(b)(1). The Deputy Director is removable at will
by the Secretary of Commerce because “[i]n the absence of
all constitutional provision, or statutory regulation as to
the removal of [inferior] officers, . . . the power of removal
[is] incident to the power of appointment.” In re Hennen,
38 U.S. 230, 259 (1839). 9 Under the statute,
8 The statute also specifies that the Director is ap-
pointed and removable at will by the President. 35 U.S.C.
§ 3(a)(1), (4).
9 The Deputy Director is not an “employee” for pur-
poses of 5 U.S.C. § 7513, which provides removal protec-
tions to PTO officers and employees through 35 U.S.C. §
3(c)’s application of Title 5 to the PTO’s “[o]fficers and em-
ployees.” Section 7511(b)(2)(C) of Title 5 excludes from the
definition of “employees” subject to these protections those
“employees whose position has been determined to be of a
confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-
advocating character” by “the head of an agency for a posi-
tion excepted from the competitive service by statute.” The
legislative history of this provision indicates that political
appointees (of which the Deputy Director is one) were not
meant to be included in the definition of “employee” for pur-
poses of § 7513 removal protections. H.R. Rep. No. 101-
328, 4–5 (1989); see also Special Counsel v. Peace Corps, 31
M.S.P.R. 225, 231 (1986) (“The[] terms [‘policy-making,’
‘confidential,’ and ‘policy-advocating’] . . . are, after all,
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 13
“Commissioners [such as the Commissioner of Patents]
may be removed from office by the Secretary for miscon-
duct or nonsatisfactory performance . . . , without regard to
the provisions of title 5”—essentially at-will removal. 35
U.S.C. § 3(b)(2)(C). In contrast, to be removed under Title
5, “the agency must show . . . that the employee’s miscon-
duct is likely to have an adverse impact on the agency’s
performance of its functions.” Brown v. Dep’t of the Navy,
229 F.3d 1356, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (emphasis added).
The Deputy Director and the Commissioner of Patents
are also inferior officers because they are supervised by the
Director. Again, in Edmond, the Supreme Court “th[ought]
it evident that ‘inferior officers’ are officers whose work is
directed and supervised at some level by others who were
appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and
consent of the Senate.” Edmond, 520 U.S. at 662 (empha-
sis added). The Director has significant administrative
oversight of the duties of these two officers. The USPTO’s
organizational chart shows that the Deputy Director and
the Commissioner of Patents report to the Director. See,
e.g., USPTO Fiscal Year 2019 Congressional Justification,
at 3, https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/docu-
ments/fy19pbr.pdf. The Deputy Director is appointed by
the Secretary of Commerce only “upon nomination by the
Director.” 35 U.S.C. § 3(b)(1). And the Secretary of Com-
merce, acting through the Director, annually evaluates the
Commissioner’s performance, which determines the Com-
missioner’s annual bonus. 35 U.S.C. § 3(b)(2)(B).
In sum, the roles that would be played by these three
members of an executive rehearing panel would be
only a shorthand way of describing positions to be filled by
so-called ‘political appointees.’”); Aharonian v. Gutierrez,
524 F. Supp. 2d 54, 55 (D.D.C. 2007) (describing the ap-
pointment of the PTO Deputy Director as a “decision[] in-
volving high-level policymaking personnel.”).
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14 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
constitutional because the Director is a principal officer,
and the Deputy Director and the Commissioner of Patents
are inferior officers subject to the supervision of the Direc-
tor of and the Secretary. If an appropriate stay were
granted, it would seem possible that the Director, if he
chose to do so, could achieve agency review without Con-
gressional legislation.
Of course, as I discuss in the next section, either a Con-
gressional fix or an agency fix could not be retroactive. The
new rehearing procedure would have to be made available
to losing parties in past cases.
II
Alternatively, I conclude that if the panel’s Title 5 pro-
tection remedy remained, this would still not require a re-
mand for a new hearing before a new panel, as the Arthrex
panel opinion holds. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1340. This new
hearing remedy is not required by Lucia v. S.E.C., 138 S.
Ct. 2044 (2018), imposes large and unnecessary burdens on
the system of inter partes review, and involves unconstitu-
tional prospective decision-making.
A
After holding the APJ removal protection provisions
unconstitutional and severable, the panel set aside all
panel decisions of the Board where the issue was properly
raised on appeal. These cases are remanded for a new
hearing before a new panel “[b]ecause the Board’s decision
in this case was made by a panel of APJs that were not
constitutionally appointed at the time the decision was ren-
dered.” Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1338.
This holding is in part constitutional interpretation
and part statutory construction. In essence, the panel im-
properly makes the application of its decision prospective
only, so that only PTAB decisions after the date of the
panel’s opinion are rendered by a constitutionally ap-
pointed panel. In my view, the panel improperly declined
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 15
to make its ruling retroactive. If the ruling were retroac-
tive, the actions of APJs in the past would have been com-
pliant with the constitution and the statute. In this
respect, I think that the panel in Arthrex ignored governing
Supreme Court authority.
B
I first address the Arthrex panel’s claim that Lucia
mandates remanding for a new hearing. In Lucia, the is-
sue was whether Securities and Exchange Commission
(“SEC”) ALJs were inferior officers that had to be ap-
pointed by an agency head—the SEC. Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at
2051 & n.3 (2018). The Supreme Court held that “[t]he
Commission’s ALJs are ‘Officers of the United States,’ sub-
ject to the Appointments Clause.” Id. at 2055. The ALJs
were found to be unconstitutionally appointed as “Officers
of the United States” because they were appointed by
“[o]ther staff members, rather than the Commission
proper.” Id. at 2049, 2051.
While the case was pending, “the SEC issued an order
‘ratif[ying]’ the prior appointments of its ALJs,” thus ap-
parently curing the constitutional defect. 10 Id. at 2055 n.6
(alteration in original) (quoting SEC Order, In re: Pending
Administrative Proceedings (Nov. 30, 2017),
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/opinions/2017/33-
10440.pdf). The Supreme Court nevertheless held that
“the ‘appropriate’ remedy for an adjudication tainted with
an appointments violation is a new ‘hearing before a
properly appointed’ official.” Id. at 2055 (quoting Ryder v.
United States, 515 U.S. 183, 183, 188 (1995)).
The difference between Lucia and Arthrex is that the
fix in Lucia was an agency fix, whereas the fix in Arthrex
10 The Court declined to decide whether the agency
cured the defect when it “ratified” the appointments, but
assumed that it did so. Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2055 n.6.
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16 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
is a judicial fix. Agencies and legislatures generally act
only prospectively, while a judicial construction of a statute
or a holding that a part of the statute is unconstitutional
and construing the statute to permit severance are neces-
sarily retrospective as well as prospective.
C
As the Supreme Court concluded in Rivers v. Roadway
Exp., Inc., 511 U.S. 298 (1994), in construing a statute,
courts are “explaining [their] understanding of what the
statute has meant continuously since the date when it be-
came law.” Id. at 313 n.12 (emphasis added). The same is
true as to constitutional decisions, as Harper v. Virginia
Dep’t of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86 (1993) confirmed: “‘[B]oth
the common law and our own decisions’ have ‘recognized a
general rule of retrospective effect for the constitutional de-
cisions of this Court.’” Id. at 94 (quoting Robinson v. Neil,
409 U.S. 505, 507 (1973)). As Justice Scalia put it in his
concurrence in the later Reynoldsville decision:
In fact, what a court does with regard to an uncon-
stitutional law is simply to ignore it. It decides the
case “disregarding the [unconstitutional] law,”
Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 178 (1803) (em-
phasis added), because a law repugnant to the Con-
stitution “is void, and is as no law,” Ex parte
Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 376 (1880).
Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514 U.S. 749, 760 (1995)
(Scalia, J., concurring) (alterations in original). In other
words, “[w]hen [a c]ourt applies a rule of federal law to the
parties before it, that rule is the controlling interpretation
of federal law and must be given full retroactive effect in
all cases still open on direct review and as to all events,
regardless of whether such events predate or postdate [the
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 17
court’s] announcement of the rule.” Harper, 509 U.S. at
97. 11
The requirement for retroactivity applies to remedies
as well, such as the remedy in this case. In Reynoldsville,
the Court reversed an Ohio Supreme Court decision declin-
ing to apply a constitutional decision as to a limitations pe-
riod retroactively. 514 U.S. at 759. The Court rejected the
respondent’s argument that the Ohio Supreme Court’s de-
cision was based on “remedy” rather than “non-retroactiv-
ity” and held that accepting the Ohio Supreme Court’s
“remedy” would “create what amounts to an ad hoc exemp-
tion from retroactivity.” Id. at 758. The Court noted only
four circumstances where retroactive application of a con-
stitutional ruling is not outcome-determinative. 12 None is
remotely relevant to Arthrex.
Thus, to be consistent with Harper, the statute here
must be read as though the APJs had always been consti-
tutionally appointed, “disregarding” the unconstitutional
11 Harper overruled prior caselaw that provided for
exceptions allowing prospective application of a new rule of
law in constitutional and other cases. Reynoldsville Casket
Co. v. Hyde, 514 U.S. 749, 752 (1995) (“Harper overruled [a
prior Supreme Court decision] insofar as the [prior] case
(selectively) permitted the prospective-only application of a
new rule of law.”).
12 Namely, where there is: “(1) an alternative way of
curing the constitutional violation; or (2) a previously ex-
isting, independent legal basis (having nothing to do with
retroactivity) for denying relief; or (3) as in the law of qual-
ified immunity, a well-established general legal rule that
trumps the new rule of law, which general rule re-
flects both reliance interests and other significant policy
justifications; or (4) a principle of law, such as that of ‘fi-
nality’ . . . , that limits the principle of retroactivity itself.”
Reynoldsville, 514 U.S. at 759 (internal citations omitted).
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18 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
removal provisions. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 178
(1803). Since no Congressional or agency action is required
in order to render the appointment of the PTAB judges con-
stitutional, when the PTAB judges decided cases in the
past, they did not act improperly. Thus, the past opinions
rendered by the PTAB should be reviewed on the merits,
not vacated for a new hearing before a different panel.
To be sure, a new decision or hearing may sometimes
be necessary where a deciding official might have acted dif-
ferently if he had been aware of the unconstitutional na-
ture of a restriction on his authority. That was the
situation in Booker, where judges’ decision-making might
have been affected by their perception that the sentencing
guidelines were mandatory and where the mandatory pro-
vision was held unconstitutional and severed. Booker, 543
U.S. at 249–265. Booker was not an Appointments Clause
case, and even in Booker, a new sentencing hearing was not
required in every case. Id. at 268. Here, even applying the
Booker approach, it is simply not plausible that the PTAB
judges’ decision-making would have been affected by the
perceived existence or non-existence of the removal protec-
tions of Title 5. As the Fifth Circuit has concluded in this
respect, “[r]estrictions on removal are different” from Ap-
pointments Clause violations where “officers were vested
with authority that was never properly theirs to exercise.”
Collins v. Mnuchin, 938 F.3d 553, 593 (5th Cir. 2019) (en
banc) (separate majority opinion). 13 As discussed above,
13 In Collins, the Fifth Circuit explained:
Restrictions on removal are different. In such cases
the conclusion is that the officers are duly ap-
pointed by the appropriate officials and exercise
authority that is properly theirs. The problem iden-
tified by the [different] majority decision in this
case is that, once appointed, they are too distant
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 19
Lucia required a new determination, but in that case the
fix was imposed only prospectively—the making of new ap-
pointments by the agency head and the ratification of ear-
lier appointments—rather than a retroactive court decision
involving severance. See Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2055 n.6.
D
While the Circuits appear to be divided as to the retro-
activity issue in Appointments Clause and similar cases, 14
from presidential oversight to satisfy the Constitu-
tion’s requirements.
Perhaps in some instances such an officer’s actions
should be invalidated. The theory would be that a
new President would want to remove the incum-
bent officer to instill his own selection, or
maybe that an independent officer would act differ-
ently than if that officer were removable at will. We
have found no cases from either our court or the
Supreme Court accepting that theory.
938 F.3d at 593–94 (separate majority opinion)
14 In Collins v. Mnuchin, 938 F.3d 553 (5th Cir. 2019)
(en banc), the en banc Fifth Circuit found that the Federal
Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) was unconstitutionally
structured because Congress “[g]rant[ed] both removal pro-
tection and full agency leadership to a single FHFA Direc-
tor.” Id. at 591. It did not invalidate prior agency actions.
Id. at 592 (separate majority opinion). It concluded that
the only appropriate remedy, and one that “fixes
the . . . purported injury,” is a declaratory judgment “re-
moving the ‘for cause’ provision found unconstitutional.”
Id. 595 (separate majority opinion).
In Intercollegiate Broadcasting and Kuretski, the D.C.
Circuit reached the opposite result. See Intercollegiate
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20 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
the very Supreme Court decisions relied on in Arthrex have
given retroactive effect to statutory constructions or consti-
tutional decisions that remedied potential Appointment
Clause violations. In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Co.
Accounting Oversight Board, 561 U.S. 477 (2010), the
SEC’s Public Company Accounting Oversight Board had
instituted an investigation against an accounting firm,
Beckstead and Watts (“B&W”). Id. at 487. B&W and an-
other affiliated organization, Free Enterprise Fund, filed
suit, asking the district court to enjoin the investigation as
improperly instituted because members of the Board had
not been constitutionally appointed. Id. at 487–88. The
Supreme Court found that the statutory removal protec-
tions afforded to members of the Board were unconstitu-
tional. Id. at 484. “By granting the Board executive power
without the Executive’s oversight [i.e., by limiting re-
moval], th[e Sarbanes-Oxley] Act subvert[ed] the Presi-
dent’s ability to ensure that the laws are faithfully
Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Copyright Royalty Bd., 684 F.3d 1332
(D.C. Cir. 2012); Kuretski v. Comm’r, 755 F.3d 929 (D.C.
Cir. 2014). In Intercollegiate Broadcasting, the D.C. Cir-
cuit found that the appointments of the Copyright Royalty
Judges in the Library of Congress violated the Appoint-
ments Clause because they could be removed only for
cause. 684 F.3d at 1334. The court invalidated the for-
cause restriction on the removal of the judges, rendering
them “validly appointed inferior officers.” Id. at 1340–41.
Yet, the D.C. Circuit declared that “[b]ecause the Board’s
structure was unconstitutional at the time it issued its de-
termination, we vacate and remand the determination.”
Id. at 1342. These two cases were not based on Supreme
Court precedent, did not consider the Supreme Court prec-
edent suggesting a different result, and were an apparent
departure from the Court’s rulings in similar circum-
stances.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 21
executed—as well as the public’s ability to pass judgment
on his efforts.” Id. at 498. But the Court severed the un-
constitutional removal provisions from the remainder of
the statute, leaving the rest of relevant act fully opera-
tional and constitutional. Id. at 509.
The Court did not view this action as fixing the problem
only prospectively. It refused to invalidate or enjoin the
prior actions of the Board in instituting the investigation,
explaining that “properly viewed, under the Constitu-
tion, . . . the Board members are inferior officers” and “have
been validly appointed by the full Commission.” Id. at 510,
513. The Court remanded for further proceedings, but ex-
plained that the plaintiffs were only “entitled to declara-
tory relief sufficient to ensure that the reporting
requirements and auditing standards to which they [we]re
subject will be enforced only by a constitutional agency ac-
countable to the Executive.” 15 Id. at 513.
So too in Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S. 651 (1997),
past actions by the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals
were not set aside. The criminal defendants’ convictions
had been affirmed by the Coast Guard Court of Criminal
Appeals. Id. at 655. The defendants contended that the
Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals judges had not
been properly appointed, rendering the convictions invalid.
See id. The issue was “whether Congress ha[d] authorized
the Secretary of Transportation to appoint civilian [judges
to] the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals, and if so,
whether this authorization [wa]s constitutional under the
15 On remand, the parties agreed that the Supreme
Court’s decision did not require invalidating the Board’s
prior actions. The agreed-upon judgment stated: “[a]ll re-
lief not specifically granted by this judgment is hereby
DENIED.” Judgment, Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Ac-
counting Oversight Bd., No. 06-0217 (D.D.C. Feb. 23, 2011),
ECF No. 66.
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22 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
Appointments Clause of Article II [because the judges were
inferior officers].” Id. at 653.
The Court construed the relevant statutes so that “Ar-
ticle 66(a) d[id] not give [the] Judge Advocates General au-
thority to appoint Court of Criminal Appeals judges; [and]
that § 323(a) d[id] give the Secretary of Transportation au-
thority to do so.” Id. at 658. The Court explained that “no
other way to interpret Article 66(a) that would make it con-
sistent with the Constitution” because “Congress could not
give the Judge Advocates General power to ‘appoint’ even
inferior officers of the United States.” Id. The Court then
found that the judges of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal
Appeals were inferior officers and that “[their] judicial ap-
pointments [by the Secretary] . . . [we]re therefore valid.”
Id. at 666. Most significantly, the Court did not remand for
a new hearing but rather “affirm[ed] the judgment of the
Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.” Id. Nowhere did
the Court suggest that the actions taken before the Court’s
construction were rendered invalid.
In Appointments Clause cases, the Supreme Court has
required a new hearing only where the appointment’s de-
fect had not been cured 16 or where the cure was the result
16 See Ryder v. United States, 515 U.S. 177, 187–88
(1995) (declining to apply the de facto officer doctrine to
preserve rulings made by an unconstitutionally appointed
panel); N.L.R.B. v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513, 519, 520,
557 (2014) (affirming the DC Circuit in vacating an NLRB
order finding a violation because the Board lacked a
quorum as “the President lacked the power to make the
[Board] recess appointments here at issue”); see also
Bandimere v. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n, 844 F.3d 1168, 1171,
1188 (10th Cir. 2016) (setting aside opinion of an improp-
erly appointed SEC ALJ where “the SEC conceded the ALJ
had not been constitutionally appointed”).
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 23
of non-judicial action. 17 The contrary decision in Arthrex is
inconsistent with binding Supreme Court precedent and
creates a host of problems in identifying the point in time
when the appointments became valid. 18
***
I respectfully suggest that Arthrex was wrongly de-
cided for two reasons. First, the panel’s remedy invalidat-
ing the Title 5 removal protections for APJs is contrary to
Congressional intent and should not be invoked without
giving Congress and the PTO the opportunity to devise a
less disruptive remedy. Second, even if the Arthrex remedy
(to sever Title 5 protections) were adopted, there would be
no need for a remand for a new hearing before a new panel
because, under this judicial construction, APJs will be ret-
roactively properly appointed by the Secretary of
17 See Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at 2055 n.6; see also Jones
Bros., Inc. v. Sec’y of Labor, 898 F.3d 669, 679 (6th Cir.
2018) (improperly appointed ALJ’s decision vacated de-
spite Mine Commission’s attempt to cure the improper ap-
pointment during judicial review by ratifying the
appointment of every ALJ); Cirko on behalf of Cirko v.
Comm’r of Soc. Sec., 948 F.3d 148, 152 (3d Cir. 2020) (af-
firming district court’s remand for a new hearing before
properly appointed Social Security Administration ALJs
despite SSA’s later reappointment of all agency judges).
18 The difficulty of identifying at what point in time
the appointments becomes effective is evident. Is it when
the panel issues the decision, when the mandate issues,
when en banc review is denied, when certiorari is denied,
or (if there is an en banc proceeding) when the en banc
court affirms the panel, or (if the Supreme Court grants
review) when the Supreme Court affirms the court of ap-
peals decision?
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24 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
Commerce and their prior decisions will not be rendered
invalid.
III
Finally, the panel’s conclusion that PTAB judges are
principal officers under the existing statutory structure is
open to question. It does appear to be the case under the
Supreme Court’s decision in Lucia that PTAB judges are
“officers,” but it seems to me far from clear that they are
“principal officers.” The panel concluded that they were
because “‘inferior officers’ are officers whose work is di-
rected and supervised at some level by others who were ap-
pointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and
consent of the Senate.” Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1329 (quoting
Edmond, 520 U.S. at 662–63). The panel held that no prin-
cipal officer “exercise[d] sufficient direction and supervi-
sion over APJs to render them inferior officers.” Id.
Despite the quoted language in Edmond, I do not think
that the sole distinction between “inferior officers” and
“principal officers” lies in agency supervision. In Morrison
v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988), the Supreme Court held that
an independent counsel was an “inferior officer” despite the
fact that she was removable only for “good cause” and “pos-
sesse[d] a degree of independent discretion to exercise the
powers delegated to her,” id. at 671, 691.
In Morrison, the Court was in part persuaded by the
fact that the independent counsel’s “grant of authority d[id]
not include any authority to formulate policy for the Gov-
ernment or the Executive Branch.” Morrison, 487 U.S. at
671. The First Circuit squared the holdings in Edmond
and Morrison “by holding that Edmond’s supervision test
was sufficient, but not necessary.” Aurelius, 915 F.3d at
860. The First Circuit explained that “inferior officers are
those who are directed and supervised by a presidential ap-
pointee; otherwise, they ‘might still be considered inferior
officers if the nature of their work suggests sufficient
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 25
limitations of responsibility and authority.’” Id. (quoting
United States v. Hilario, 218 F.3d 19, 25 (1st Cir. 2000)).
Similarly, here, it seems appropriate to also examine
whether the role of the officers in question includes articu-
lation of agency policy. PTAB judges have no such role.
They are not charged with articulating agency policy, and
certainly are not the principal officers charged with that
articulation. Their sole function is to determine the facts
in individual patent challenges under the AIA; as to the
law, they are obligated to follow the law as articulated by
the Supreme Court and this court. It appears to be the case
that review of administrative judges’ decisions by an Arti-
cle I court prevented the administrative judges in Edmond
and Masias v. Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., 634 F.3d
1283 (Fed. Cir. 2011), from being “officers.” See Edmond,
520 U.S. at 664; Masias, 634 F.3d at 1294. It is hard for
me to see how identical review by an Article III court
(which severely cabins the authority of PTAB judges) does
not prevent PTAB judges from being principal officers.
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 45 Filed: 03/23/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ARTHREX, INC.,
Appellant
v.
SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., ARTHROCARE CORP.,
Appellees
UNITED STATES,
Intervenor
______________________
2018-2140
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2017-
00275.
______________________
HUGHES, Circuit Judge, with whom WALLACH, Circuit
Judge, joins, dissenting from the denial of the petitions
for rehearing en banc.
I respectfully dissent from the court’s decision
declining to rehear this appeal en banc. I believe that,
viewed in light of the Director’s significant control over the
activities of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and
Administrative Patent Judges, APJs are inferior officers
already properly appointed by the Secretary of Commerce.
And even if APJs are properly considered principal officers,
I have grave doubts about the remedy the Arthrex panel
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 46 Filed: 03/23/2020
2 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
applied to fix their appointment. In the face of an
unconstitutional statute, our role is to determine whether
severance of the unconstitutional portion would be
consistent with Congress’s intent. Given the federal
employment protections APJs and their predecessors have
enjoyed for more than three decades, and the overall goal
of the America Invents Act, I do not think Congress would
have divested APJs of their Title 5 removal protections to
cure any alleged constitutional defect in their appointment.
As Judge Dyk suggests in his dissent, which I join as to
Part I.A, I agree that Congress should be given the
opportunity to craft the appropriate fix. Dyk Op. at 6.
I
None of the parties here dispute that APJs are officers
who exercise “significant authority pursuant to the laws of
the United States.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 126 (1976)
(per curiam). But “significant authority” marks the line
between an officer and an employee, not a principal and an
inferior officer. Despite being presented with the oppor-
tunity to do so, the Supreme Court has declined to “set
forth an exclusive criterion for distinguishing between
principal and inferior officers for Appointments Clause
purposes.” Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S. 651, 661
(1997).
Instead, the pertinent cases make clear that the hall-
mark of an inferior officer is whether a presidentially-nom-
inated and senate-confirmed principal officer “direct[s] and
supervise[s] [her work] at some level.” Id. at 663. Edmond
does not lay out a more exacting test than this, and we
should not endeavor to create one in its stead. Instead, I
believe the Supreme Court has engaged in a context-spe-
cific inquiry accounting for the unique systems of direction
and supervision of inferior officers in each case. See infra
Section I. Importantly, the Court has not required that a
principal officer be able to single-handedly review and re-
verse the decisions of inferior officers, or remove them at
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 3
will, to qualify as inferior. And I believe that the Supreme
Court would have announced such a simple test if it were
proper.
Finally, Edmond also makes clear that the Appoint-
ments Clause seeks to “preserve political accountability
relative to important government assignments.” 520 U.S.
at 663. The Director’s power to direct and supervise the
Board and individual APJs, along with the fact that APJs
are already removable under the efficiency of the service
standard, provides such political accountability. APJs are
therefore inferior officers.
A
The Director may issue binding policy guidance, insti-
tute and reconsider institution of an inter partes review,
select APJs to preside over an instituted inter partes re-
view, single-handedly designate or de-designate any final
written decision as precedential, and convene a panel of
three or more members of his choosing to consider rehear-
ing any Board decision. The Arthrex panel categorized
some of these as “powers of review” and others as “powers
of supervision,” but I view them all as significant tools of
direction and supervision.
As Arthrex recognized, “[t]he Director is ‘responsible for
providing policy direction and management supervision’
for the [United States Patent and Trademark Office].” Ar-
threx, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 941 F.3d 1320, 1331
(Fed. Cir. 2019) (quoting 35 U.S.C. § 3(a)(2)(A)). Not only
can the Director promulgate regulations governing inter
partes review procedures, but he may also prospectively is-
sue binding policy guidance “interpreting and applying the
patent and trademark laws.” Gov’t. Br. 37. APJs must ap-
ply this guidance in all subsequent inter partes review pro-
ceedings. Such guidance might encompass, for instance,
exemplary application of the law to specific fact patterns,
such as those posed in pending cases. These powers pro-
vide the Director with control over the process and
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4 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
substance of Board decisions. Gov’t. Br. 36–37. And
though the Director cannot directly reverse an individual
Board decision that neglects to follow his guidance, APJs
who do so risk discipline or removal under the efficiency of
the service standard applicable under Title 5. See infra
Section I C. Such binding guidance, and the consequences
of failing to follow it, are powerful tools for control of an
inferior officer. 1
The Director also has unreviewable authority to insti-
tute inter partes review. 35 U.S.C. § 314(a), (d). Cf. Free
Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S.
477, 504 (2010) (discussing the importance of the ability to
“start, stop, or alter individual [PCAOB] investigations,”
even where the reviewing principal officer already had sig-
nificant “power over [PCAOB] activities”). Though the Ar-
threx panel did not address the Director’s ability to
reconsider an institution decision, our precedent holds that
the Board 2 may reconsider and reverse its initial institu-
tion decision. See, e.g., Medtronic, Inc. v. Robert Bosch
Healthcare Sys., Inc., 839 F.3d 1382, 1385−86 (Fed. Cir.
2016) (explaining that Ҥ 318(a) contemplates that a pro-
ceeding can be ‘dismissed’ after it is instituted, and, as our
prior cases have held, administrative agencies possess
1 To be sure, I do not mean to suggest that the Direc-
tor’s extensive powers of supervision mean that he can dic-
tate the outcome of a specific inter partes proceeding.
Rather, his ability to issue guidance and designate prece-
dential opinions provides the general type of supervision
and control over APJs’ decision-making that renders them
inferior, not principal, officers.
2 The Director’s delegation of his institution power to
the Board does not diminish its existence. 37 C.F.R.
§ 42.4(a) (stating that “[t]he Board institutes the trial on
behalf of the Director”). See also Ethicon Endo-Surgery,
Inc. v. Covidien LP, 812 F.3d 1023, 1033 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 5
inherent authority to reconsider their decisions, subject to
certain limitations, regardless of whether they possess ex-
plicit statutory authority to do so” (internal quotation and
citation omitted)).
The Director also controls which APJs will hear any
given instituted inter partes review. 35 U.S.C. § 6(c). In
my view, this power of panel designation is a quintessential
method of directing and controlling a subordinate. Im-
portantly, I do not believe that in stating that the power to
remove an officer at-will from federal employment is “a
powerful tool for control of an inferior,” Free Enterprise, 561
U.S. at 510 (internal quotation omitted), the Supreme
Court meant that such removal power is the only effective
form of control in the context of the Appointments Clause.
For example, the Judge Advocate General in Edmond could
remove the Court of Criminal Appeal judges from judicial
service without cause, but not necessarily federal employ-
ment altogether. Edmond, 520 U.S. at 664. See also Free
Enterprise, 561 U.S. at 510 (relying on both at-will removal
authority and “the [SEC’s] other oversight authority” in
finding with “no hesitation” that the PCAOB members are
inferior officers). That is akin to the Director’s authority to
designate which APJs will consider a certain case. And de-
spite acknowledging that “when a statute is silent on re-
moval, the power of removal is presumptively incident to
the power of appointment[,]” the Arthrex panel declined to
opine on the Director’s ability to de-designate APJs from a
panel under § 6(c). Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1332. But Edmond
referenced the ability to remove the judges there “from
[their] judicial assignment[s],” followed by a recognition of
the potent power of removal. 520 U.S. at 664. If the Direc-
tor’s ability to control APJs plays a significant part in the
unconstitutionality at issue, such that the remedy is to
make APJs removable at will, the panel should have defin-
itively addressed the Director’s de-designation authority.
Moreover, as outlined in Section I C, infra, APJs already
may be disciplined or removed from federal employment
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6 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
under the routine efficiency of the service standard, which
is not incompatible with discipline or removal for failing to
follow the Director’s binding guidance.
And the Director may continue to provide substantial
direction and supervision after the Board issues its final
written decision. As Arthrex recognizes, the Director may
convene a Precedential Opinion Panel (POP), of which the
Director is a member, to consider whether to designate a
decision as precedential. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1330. But I
read the Standard Operating Procedures more broadly,
such that the Director may also make a precedential desig-
nation or de-designation decision single-handedly, 3
thereby unilaterally establishing binding agency authority
on important constitutional questions and other exception-
ally important issues. Standard Operating Procedure 2, at
3−4. Indeed, it appears that the Director has done so in at
least sixteen cases in 2018 and 2019. See USPTO, Patent
Trial and Appeal Board Precedential and informative deci-
sions, available at https://www.uspto.gov/patents-applica-
tion-process/patent-trial-and-appeal-board/precedential-
informative-decisions (listing decisions designated as prec-
edential in the past year, where some are labeled as “Prec-
edential Opinion Panel decision” and others are not). The
Director may also convene a POP of his choice, of which he
3 “No decision will be designated or de-designated as
precedential or informative without the approval of the Di-
rector. This SOP does not limit the authority of the Director
to designate or de-designate decisions as precedential or in-
formative, or to convene a Precedential Opinion Panel to
review a matter, in his or her sole discretion without regard
to the procedures set forth herein.” Patent Trial and Ap-
peal Board, Standard Operating Procedure 2 (Revision 10)
at 1 (Standard Operating Procedure 2), available at
https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/docu-
ments/SOP2%20R10%20FINAL.pdf.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 7
is by default a member, to consider whether to rehear and
reverse any opinion. Standard Operating Procedure 2, at
4. And, the Director may “determine that a panel of more
than three members is appropriate” and then choose those
additional members as well. Id. Though the Arthrex panel
recognized these powers, it dismissed them because the Di-
rector has only one vote out of at least three. 941 F.3d at
1331−32. This assessment, however, misses the practical
influence the Director wields with the power to hand-pick
a panel, particularly when the Director sits on that panel.
The Director’s ability to unilaterally designate or de-desig-
nate a decision as precedential and to convene a POP of the
size and composition of his choosing are important tools for
the direction and supervision of the Board even after it is-
sues a final written decision. 4
4 The underestimation of the Director’s power is par-
ticularly evident in light of this court’s prior en banc deci-
sion in In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526 (Fed. Cir. 1994),
abrogated on other grounds by In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943
(Fed. Cir. 2008). Alappat contained strong language about
the ability to control the composition and size of panels.
See, e.g., id. at 1535 (noting that “the Board is merely the
highest level of the Examining Corps, and like all other
members of the Examining Corps, the Board operates sub-
ject to the Commissioner’s overall ultimate authority and
responsibility”). While the duties of the Board and the Di-
rector have changed since Alappat was decided, the author-
ity to determine the Board’s composition for
reconsideration of an examiner’s patentability determina-
tion mirrors the current authority with respect to inter
partes review. Compare 35 U.S.C. § 6(c) (2012) (giving the
Director authority to designate “at least 3 members of the
Patent Trial and Appeal Board” to review “[e]ach appeal,
derivation proceeding, post-grant review, and inter partes
review”), with 35 U.S.C. § 7(b) (1988) (giving the
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8 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
Combined, all of these powers provide the Director con-
stitutionally significant means of direction and supervision
over APJs─making them inferior officers under the rule of
Edmond.
B
Despite the Director’s significant powers of direction
and supervision, the Arthrex panel concluded that APJs are
principal officers in large part because no principal officer
may “single-handedly review, nullify or reverse” the
Board’s decisions. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1329. But Supreme
Court precedent does not require such power. And in the
cases in which the Court emphasized a principal officer’s
power of review, that principal officer had less authority to
direct and supervise an inferior officer’s work ex ante than
the Director has here.
In Edmond, for instance, the Court of Appeals for the
Armed Forces, an Article I court, could review decisions of
the Court of Criminal Appeals judges at issue. However,
its scope of review was limited. Edmond, 520 U.S. at 665
(explaining that the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
may only reevaluate the facts when there is no “competent
evidence in the record to establish each element of the of-
fense beyond a reasonable doubt”). And while the Judge
Advocate General “exercise[d] administrative oversight”
and could “prescribe uniform rules of procedure,” he could
“not attempt to influence (by threat of removal or other-
wise) the outcome of individual proceedings.” Id. at 664.
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court found that the Court of
Commissioner power to designate “at least three members
of the Board of Appeals and Interferences” to review “ad-
verse decisions of examiners upon applications for pa-
tents”). Therefore, I believe the panel should have at least
discussed how Alappat’s view of the power to control the
Board might impact the Appointments Clause analysis.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 9
Criminal Appeals judges were inferior, not principal, offic-
ers. In comparison, while the Director may not unilaterally
decide to rehear or reverse a Board decision, he has many
powers to direct and supervise APJs both ex ante and ex
post, Section I A, supra, that no principal officer had in Ed-
mond.
Similarly, in Freytag v. Comm’r, 501 U.S. 868 (1991),
the Supreme Court considered the status of special trial
judges appointed by the Tax Court, whose independent de-
cision-making varied based on the type of case before them.
The Court held that the special trial judges were inferior
officers—not employees—when presiding over “declaratory
judgment proceedings and limited-amount tax cases” be-
cause they “render[ed] the decisions of the Tax Court” in
those cases. Id. at 882. In doing so, the Court distin-
guished between cases in which the special trial judges
acted as “inferior officers who exercise independent author-
ity,” and cases in which they still had significant discretion
but less independent authority. Id. The Court’s analysis
distinguished between inferior officer and employee; no-
where did the Court suggest that special trial judges’ “in-
dependent authority” to decide declaratory judgment
proceedings and limited-amount cases rendered them prin-
cipal officers. See id. at 881−82. Most recently, the Court
applied the framework of Freytag in deciding whether ad-
ministrative law judges (ALJs) of the Securities and Ex-
change Commission (SEC) are inferior officers or
employees. Lucia v. S.E.C., 138 S. Ct. 2044, 2053 (2018).
The Court reasoned that SEC ALJs and Freytag’s special
trial judges are extremely similar, but SEC ALJs arguably
wield more power because their decisions become final if
the SEC declines review. Id. at 2053−54. But again, the
Court found this structure still only rendered SEC ALJs
officers, not employees. Id. at 2054. No mention was made
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10 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
of SEC ALJs being principal officers. 5 See id. at 2051 n.3
(explaining that the distinction between principal and in-
ferior officers was “not at issue here”). Just as the special
trial judges in Freytag and the SEC ALJs in Lucia were
inferior officers, so too are APJs.
Nor does this court’s precedent require unfettered re-
view as a marker of inferior officer status. In Masias v.
Sec’y of Health & Human Servs., we rebuffed the argument
that because the Court of Federal Claims does not review
decisions of the Vaccine Program’s special masters de novo,
the special masters are principal officers. 634 F.3d 1283,
1293−94 (Fed. Cir. 2011). There, we recognized that the
Court of Federal Claims may only “set aside any findings
of fact or conclusions of law of the special master found to
be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or other-
wise not in accordance with law . . . .” Id. at 1294. This
limited review means that many of the special masters’ de-
cisions are effectively final because the Court of Federal
Claims has no basis to set aside findings of fact or conclu-
sions of law. We reasoned that such limited review of spe-
cial masters’ decisions by the Court of Federal Claims
resembled the review in Edmond, and that “the fact that
the review is limited does not mandate that special masters
are necessarily ‘principal officers.’” Id. at 1295.
Finally, the panel analogized the Arthrex issue to the
one addressed by the D.C. Circuit in Intercollegiate Broad.
Sys., Inc. v. Copyright Royalty Bd., 684 F.3d 1332 (D.C. Cir.
2012). See Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1334. But the facts of
5 In fact, the Court declined “to elaborate on Buck-
ley’s ‘significant authority’ test” marking the line between
officer and employee, citing two parties’ briefs which ar-
gued that the test between officer and employee, not prin-
cipal and inferior officer, should include some measure of
the finality of decision making. Lucia, 138 S. Ct. at
2051─52.
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 11
Intercollegiate are significantly different than those in Ar-
threx. The Librarian of Congress—the principal officer
who supervises the Copyright Royalty Judges (CRJs) at is-
sue—was much more constrained in her ability to direct
and supervise the CRJs than the Director. The governing
statute grants CRJs broad discretion over ratemaking. See
17 U.S.C. § 802(f)(1)(A)(i) (stating that “[CRJs] shall have
full independence in making” numerous copyright rate-re-
lated decisions). The Librarian “approv[es] the CRJs’ pro-
cedural regulations, . . . issu[es] ethical rules for the CRJs,
[and] . . . oversee[s] various logistical aspects of their du-
ties,” such as publishing CRJs’ decisions and providing ad-
ministrative resources. Intercollegiate, 684 F.3d at 1338.
In fact, it appears the only way the Librarian can exercise
substantive control over the CRJs’ ratemaking decisions is
indirectly through the Register of Copyrights, whom she,
not the President, appoints. See 17 U.S.C. § 701(a). The
Register corrects any legal errors in the CRJs’ ratemaking
decisions, 17 U.S.C. § 802(f)(1)(D), and provides written
opinions to the CRJs on “novel question[s] of law,”
17 U.S.C. § 802(f)(1)(B), or when the CRJ requests such an
opinion. 17 U.S.C. § 802(f)(1)(A)(ii). But the CRJs may not
consult with the Register about a question of fact.
17 U.S.C. § 802(f)(1)(A)(i). The Librarian therefore exerts
far less control over CRJs than the Director can over APJs
using all the powers of direction and supervision discussed
in Section I A, supra.
The comparison to Intercollegiate in Arthrex again
highlights how the unique powers of direction and supervi-
sion in each case should be viewed in totality, rather than
as discrete categories weighing in favor of inferior officer
status or not. In particular, breaking up the analysis into
three discrete categories—Review, Supervision, and Re-
moval—overlooks how the powers in each category impact
each other. Again, for example, whereas ex post the Court
of Appeals for the Armed Forces has more power to review
the Court of Criminal Appeals judges’ decisions than the
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12 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
Director has to review a Board decision, neither the JAG
nor the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces have the
Director’s ex ante control, such as the power to decide
whether to hear a case at all or to issue binding guidance
on how to apply the law in a case. Viewed through this
integrated lens, I believe APJs comfortably fit with prior
Supreme Court precedent that has never found a principal
officer in a challenged position to date.
C
Finally, Title 5’s efficiency of the service standard does
not limit the ability to discipline or remove APJs in a con-
stitutionally significant manner. It allows discipline and
removal for “misconduct [that] is likely to have an adverse
impact on the agency’s performance of its functions.” See
Brown v. Dep’t of the Navy, 229 F.3d 1356, 1358 (Fed. Cir.
2000). To be sure, the efficiency of the service standard
does not allow discipline or removal of APJs “without
cause,” as in Edmond. See Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1333. But
neither the Supreme Court nor this court has required that
a civil servant be removable at will to qualify as an inferior
officer. To the contrary, the Supreme Court and this court
have upheld for-cause removal limitations on inferior offic-
ers. See, e.g., Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 692−93
(1988) (holding that the “good cause” restriction on removal
of the independent counsel, an inferior officer, is permissi-
ble); Masias, 634 F.3d at 1294 (stating that the Court of
Federal Claims can remove special masters for “incompe-
tency, misconduct, or neglect of duty or for physical or men-
tal disability or for other good cause shown”). See also Free
Enterprise, 561 U.S. at 494 (explaining that the Court pre-
viously “adopted verbatim the reasoning of the Court of
Claims, which had held that when Congress ‘ “vests the ap-
pointment of inferior officers in the heads of Depart-
ments[,] it may limit and restrict the power of removal as
it deems best for the public interest’ ” ” (alteration in origi-
nal) (quoting United States v. Perkins, 116 U.S. 483, 485
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 13
(1886) (itself quoting Perkins v. United States, 20 Ct. Cl.
438, 444 (1885)))).
The efficiency of the service standard allows supervi-
sors to discipline and terminate employees for arguably an
even wider range of reasons than the standards above.
Failing or refusing to follow the Director’s policy or legal
guidance is one such reason. Together with the significant
authority the Director wields in directing and supervising
APJs’ work, the ability to remove an APJ on any grounds
that promote the efficiency of the service supports finding
that APJs are inferior officers.
II
Assuming for the sake of argument that APJs are prin-
cipal officers, the present appointment scheme requires a
remedy. The Arthrex fix makes APJs removable at will by
partially severing 35 U.S.C. § 3(c) as it applies Title 5’s re-
moval protections to APJs. Arthrex, 941 F.3d at 1337–38.
Though the key question in a severance analysis is congres-
sional intent, Arthrex disposed of the question in a few sen-
tences. I believe a fulsome severance analysis should have
considered Congress’s intent in establishing inter partes re-
view against the backdrop of over thirty years of employ-
ment protections for APJs and their predecessors. And
doing so would have revealed the importance of removal
protections for APJs, particularly in light of Congress’s de-
sire for fairness and transparency in the patent system.
Our touchstone must remain the intent of Congress.
See United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 246 (2005). As I
outlined in my concurrence in Polaris Innovations Ltd. v.
Kingston Tech. Co., 792 F. App’x 820, 828–31 (Fed. Cir.
2020), the long-standing employment protections provided
to APJs leads me to believe that Congress intended for
them to have removal protections, regardless of changes
made to the Board in the AIA. Given this history, it seems
unlikely to me that Congress, faced with this Appoint-
ments Clause problem, would have chosen to strip APJs of
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14 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
their employment protections, rather than choose some
other alternative.
I recognize that the panel considered several potential
fixes and chose the one it viewed both as constitutional and
minimally disruptive. But removing long-standing em-
ployment protections from hundreds of APJs is quite dis-
ruptive. It paradoxically imposes the looming prospect of
removal without cause on the arbiters of a process which
Congress intended to help implement a “clearer, fairer,
more transparent, and more objective” patent system. See,
e.g., America Invents Act, 157 Cong. Rec. S5319 (daily ed.
Sept. 6, 2011) (statement of Sen. Kyl).
Given no clear evidence that Congress would have in-
tended such a drastic change, I would defer to Congress to
fix the problem. I agree with Judge Dyk that Congress
“would prefer the opportunity to itself fix any Appoint-
ments Clause problem before imposing the panel’s drastic
remedy.” Dyk Op. at 6. Congress can best weigh the need
for a fair and transparent patent system with the need for
federal employment protections for those entrusted with
carrying out that system. And Congress faces fewer con-
straints than we do in fixing an unconstitutional statute.
We should allow it to do so.
Case: 18-2140 Document: 115 Page: 59 Filed: 03/23/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
ARTHREX, INC.,
Appellant
v.
SMITH & NEPHEW, INC., ARTHROCARE CORP.,
Appellees
UNITED STATES,
Intervenor
______________________
2018-2140
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2017-
00275.
______________________
WALLACH, Circuit Judge, dissenting from denial of a
petition for rehearing en banc.
I write to express my disagreement with the merits of
the decision in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 941
F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Given the significant direction
to and supervision of an administrative patent judge
(“APJ”) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s
(“USPTO”) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) by the
USPTO Director, an APJ constitutes an inferior officer
properly appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. Specif-
ically, the Director’s ability to select a panel’s members, to
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2 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
designate a panel’s decision as precedential, and to de-des-
ignate precedential opinions gives the Director significant
authority over the APJs and preserves the political ac-
countability of the USPTO. This framework strongly sup-
ports the contention that APJs are inferior officers. I
respectfully disagree with the Arthrex decision.
The Supreme Court explained that it “ha[s] not set
forth an exclusive criterion for distinguishing between
principal and inferior officers for Appointment Clause pur-
poses[,]” Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S. 651, 661
(1997), but that it is “evident that ‘inferior officers’ are of-
ficers whose work is directed and supervised at some level
by others who were appointed by presidential nomination
with the advice and consent of the Senate[,]” id. at 663 (em-
phasis added). The inquiry is context specific; the Supreme
Court has sought to determine whether a principal officer
“exercises administrative oversight over” another, by ex-
amining, for instance, whether a principal officer “is
charged with the responsibility to prescribe uniform rules
of procedure,” “formulate[s] policies and procedure[s] in re-
gard to review of” the officer’s work, and may remove the
officer without cause. Id. at 664 (internal quotation marks
omitted). The oversight need not be “plenary,” Free Enter.
Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477,
504 (2010), and the officer’s actions may be “significant”
and done “largely independently” of the principal officer,
id. at 504. Edmond instructs that the Appointments
Clause is “designed to preserve political accountability rel-
ative to important Government assignments[.]” 520 U.S.
at 663. The current framework for appointing, directing
and supervising, and removing APJs preserves political ac-
countability of the important work done at the USPTO.
The Director has broad authority to direct and super-
vise the APJs; this includes removal powers, see 35 U.S.C
§ 3(c), and supervision responsibilities, such as the prom-
ulgation of regulations, id. § 2(b), including those govern-
ing inter partes review, id. § 316(a)(4), and establishing
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ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC. 3
USPTO policy, id. §§ 3(a), 6. In particular, there are spe-
cific ways the Director may direct and supervise the APJs
and effectively determine the outcome of their work. First,
the Director has the ability to select APJ panel members
and designate which panel decisions are precedential. Spe-
cifically, the Director controls which APJ will hear any
given appeal, proceeding, or review. See id. § 6(c) (“Each
appeal, derivation proceeding, post-grant review, and inter
partes review shall be heard by at least [three] members of
the [PTAB], who shall be designated by the Director.” (em-
phasis added)). Accordingly, the Director holds the author-
ity to select which APJ will be on a panel and is free to
exclude an APJ from a panel for any reason. I see this as
overwhelming support for the proposition that APJs are in-
ferior officers.
Second, the Director possesses an additional supervi-
sory tool in exercising his or her statutory authority to form
a standing Precedential Opinion Panel of at least three
PTAB members who can rehear and reverse any PTAB de-
cision. See Patent Trial and Appeal Board Standard Oper-
ating Procedure 2 at 2–4 https://www.uspto.gov/sites/
default/files/documents/SOP2%20R10%20FINAL.pdf. The
Precedential Opinion Panel’s opinion is precedential and
binds all future panels of the PTAB. Id. at 3. The Director
selects the members of the Precedential Opinion Panel
and, by default, serves as a member of the panel as well.
Id. at 4. The ability to select is the ability to direct. More-
over, the Director has the authority to de-designate prece-
dential opinions as she or he sees fit. Id. at 12. These tools
certainly preserve political accountability at the USPTO.
Even though the Arthrex panel focused on the Director’s
authority—or lack thereof—over APJs as an essential
building block in its analysis, the panel failed to give ade-
quate weight to these compelling features of the Director’s
authority.
Other indicia support the view that APJs are inferior
officers, but I view panel selection and precedential
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4 ARTHREX, INC. v. SMITH & NEPHEW, INC.
determinations as key, and noticeably absent from the dis-
cussion in Arthrex. Accordingly, I respectfully disagree
with the Arthrex decision.