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New Legislation Aims to Cure Possible Defect in Appointment of Some TTAB Judges

The Patently O patent law blog reports here that the U.S. House and Senate have passed "A bill to amend title 35, United States Code, and the Trademark Act of 1946 to provide that the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, shall appoint administrative patent judges and administrative trademark judges, and for other purposes." [Library of Congress information here].This legislation is, of course, intended to solve a problem pointed out by Professor John Duffy regarding the appointment of judges at the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences ("BPAI"). The Constitution requires that "inferior officers" be appointed by no one lower than "Heads of Departments." According to Duffy, administrative patent judges qualify as "inferior officers," but a number of BPAI judges may have been appointed after 2000 by the Director of the USPTO, who arguably is not the "head" of a department...continue to full post

Full post as published by The TTABlog on August 05, 2008 (boomark / email).